Finding Hunger When You Are No Longer A Starving Artist
I have praised having a 9-5 type job with benefits and a regular paycheck as a creative artist. I am grateful to continue to have one. I have no plans to go back to five part time jobs or working in a bar or restaurant. Lately though, I’ve become frustrated. I have been fucking tired and my creative juices are drained. Maybe it’s winter. Maybe it is the end of the year. But I am angry at myself and angry I still have to be an adult with a job.
I get home from work exhausted. I should be pushing myself to write or exercise but I don’t. I am exhausted and mentally drained. I look at myself in the mirror and see the paleness, dark circles, and general dissolve of the energy I had when 2019 started, when this new job started. Even now sitting here, my brain feels so sluggish from focusing on my job and I am worried I am losing the spark I have had going on for the past year when it comes to writing.
It’s baffling because when I worked a million jobs, I somehow fit in auditions and rehearsals and memorizing a monologue and still had time to date. Maybe it was my youth that allowed me to go nonstop? I’ve written about that before and don’t need to repeat the obvious. It had a lot to do with youth.
But it also has to do with the desperation that runs along side youth. The passion I felt for my dreams and the chaos that was my life when I constantly moving. I don’t move now. I work and get my paycheck, pay my bills, have savings, lowered my debt, and I can go to the doctor without giving my kidneys as payment. I lost the hunger, the drive. The path isn’t as squiggly, it is a straight line. My life is stable.
It has always been a struggle for me to balance my job and my creative life. It was working well with my last job which was slower and the hours shorter. With more responsibility and longer hours, I am disappointed that I am not squirreling away some energy for before or after my working day. I say before but anyone who knows me knows I will not be getting up any earlier than I already do. I should though. That is on me entirely. I should get up. I should let my passion fuel me and know I need to get this draft done. I need to make my goal of finishing it. If I don’t, no one dies, but I think, deep down, I do a little.
It feels easy to give in and let the side of my adult responsibilities win. I am not longer at an age where I can say ‘fuck it’ and find another job. I’m not like that anymore and my job is good. I could give in, give up, but that is as foolish as giving up my job. So how do I balance it? How do I feed that fire when all I want to do is lay under blankets because I used my brain already for 8 hours?
I know this is a common creative struggle. How much of ourselves do we give to a job? How do we stay motivated when our life is stable and we aren’t living paycheck to paycheck. Isn’t that comical? I was more motivated to get shit done when I was struggling. When you’re an actual starving artist, your hunger is real. You’re laser focused on your goals because you have no other choice. Can I even call it a survival job anymore? I am surviving on the job and now it seems my creative life is the survival job because I need it for my soul to shine. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I miss that life more and more: the life of a starving artist.
The low energy I am feeling is no surprise given the season. The winter eats me alive and always has. I don’t like the dark and my skin is dry and my hair flat and everything is terrible and everyone is grumpy and riding the subway when we all wear puffy coats is a nightmare. I know that is not all it is. I know deep down I need to spark my laser back up and focus. Otherwise, I’m an adult with a job who writes a blog and sometimes acts when people remember she did that once and ask her (please ask me again.)
