Sometimes it gets to be 6:30 in the evening and you’ve got another 2-3 hours of work ahead of you and you’re exhausted. Or maybe you got home early but the kids had a rough day and one of them has a project due tomorrow that hasn’t even been started and the other is crying because their goldfish died and everyone is hungry and there’s no food in the house and you have to solve all of these problems right now. Or maybe you had a half day at work but you didn’t get to enjoy it because your chronic illness flared up and you would have gone home early anyway for the fourth time this week and just sat there feeling miserable and wishing you hadn’t just spent all your energy on something completely useless. Whatever it is that brought it on, there are times that you’ll think, well, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to quit the day job.
Endless time to create.
Days writing. Painting. Photographing.
Evenings with the telescope. Editing images. More writing.
Deep, restful sleep, dreaming up new ideas, new techniques to try, new projects to start.
When I feel like this, I stop and take a moment and just think about what it would be like. None of the bad stuff, like trying to figure out where grocery money comes from or what to do about health insurance. Just the good stuff, like building a real home studio and taking long road trips with the camera to interesting places in the middle of nowhere.
Breaks are important. If I ever want to get back on task, it’s better to be mindful and deliberate about breaks than to just sit there with my thoughts wandering off into undisciplined frustration. Deliberate frustration is more useful.
The frustration is real and I can’t change it, for me or anyone else. Acknowledging it and experiencing it allows it to be real but at the same time makes it less overwhelming. It goes from a giant, amorphous, looming monster to a small, annoying pebble that can be held in my hand. From there, I can set it aside and get back to work.
Deep down, I know that I could quit my day job. If I were desperate, I could make some drastic lifestyle changes and just…stop. I don’t do that because I don’t want to. I like my job. I like the people I work with, the work that I do, and the financial security that comes from a nice salaried position. I’m very privileged in all of that. I’m not ready to give up that privilege.
But I might be someday. And for now, knowing that “someday” is out there is a reasonable place to be.
Yndiri Creates 
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