How much time does a week offer to live our lives? Every week, I try to live my real life in two days. I sneak pieces for a few hours Monday through Friday. Doing my best to make it back to the two days, or over a holiday three, where I can truly exist. Upon arrival I wrestle with the choices of rest or joyful action. Do the living but also needing to recoup enough energy for the five-day squeeze. Can I sustain myself in two days?
How do I sneak it in? Detaching from my hybrid mattress at 5:00 a.m. for home pole practice. Driving 80 miles for classes and coaching. Using my lunch hour to write or read. Falling down rabbit holes while researching at work. Putting in my earbuds and moving all over my living room, releasing pent up irritation and visualizing a more self-assured me. I sneak a little more at work, trying my best to bring life to ideas that someone will cherish or take comfort in. Hopefully, to meet the needs or desires of overlooked people. Reading with elementary school students during their lunch period.
The life I live from 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. on weekdays is the means to fund my real life. I feel indescribably sad, perhaps despairing, when I think about how little time I give my real life. I rush to pack it in, but my real life needs time and space to sprawl. My work is creative but corporate and draining. The best of my artistic spark needs to remain for my real life. For movement, for stringing words together, for coating brushes in color. For experiences that ignite my spirit. Moments worth living for that keep me curious about what else living has to offer. It’s not work. It’s the chance to express, to document, to share, to release.
What is my real life? It’s happily clapping when I’ve figured out the cadence, speed, and moves that flow with a piece of music. Emerging from a book that pushes me to wonder about the lives of creative elders. It’s making things for myself or loved ones to enjoy. Or a long weekend with them. It’s shoving a 48” x 60” canvas into my car, to later paint and hang over my couch. Taping together and cutting out pattern pieces on my dining room table. Traveling to hear live music and try new restaurants. It’s the satisfaction of refilling my guava chipotle glaze jar from Sofrito Project. Sitting in my bedroom chair and keeping the promise to write before bed. Following the example of one of my chosen masters, an inspiration and guide.
My real life is when I’m creating. When I’m sharing an experience, that brought me joy. Joy is my real life and I need all of it. Joy is my purpose and life blood. Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés says we can live without many things but not our joy (Women Who Run With the Wolves (1992) p. 274). Creating to express, to challenge myself, to connect with a part of me that feels grander than I am. To do and be the beautiful creation. It’s the bits I’ll sacrifice sleep, time, and money for.
The artistic work that makes me feel alive and connected to the truest part of myself. Listening to my patron saints and asking for help when I need to focus, reign in, or find the creative path. My real life consists of creative expression, supporting and enjoying the creations of others, stillness and appreciating the mundane, and assisting people younger than me.
I can’t fully live this life in two days. I extract just enough out of it to hold myself together until the next two arrive. It’s not sustainable, it’s no way to live. I want better for all of us. I could work for the collective to keep us housed, fed, and clothed. The rest of our time dedicated to our individual passions, purpose, and callings. Perhaps I can store up a reserve from those 48 hours and use the energy to support people with plans to get us there.
I know that better is possible for us. It’s what we’re fighting for, why we continue to sustain ourselves as best we can. Until we get there, I promise myself to return to more of my life. To remember I am a universe unto myself and a speck in the universe around me. I’ll take deep breaths and visualize every day of a week filled with real living. With curiosities, experimentation, and wonder. Two days may be all I have for now but not forever.
How Am I Supposed to Live My Real Life?
