Moving from California up to (nearly) Portland, Oregon is a huge dream turned real. It turned real from loads of work, energy, money, time, and gut churning powering through the scary bits.
Once that was done and we found ourselves here, on solid ground in a new and lovely place to live, I sort of collapsed. I felt really bad for said collapse. After all, isn’t this what I wanted? Why should I feel sad in the slightest? Be happy! Get out there!
Instead, I sat on the couch with Olive and watched Cars (her choice). A lot. A lot a lot. And I felt terrible. I read a lot of books, and I felt exhausted a lot, and yes, I was still mostly on that couch. I made lots of attempts at getting off that couch, of getting organized, of getting it together already!
Before I left California, I put Chickenpants, my business babies, on Glorious Indefinite Hiatus. I had no plan for what to do with them once I moved. I knew I was ready to grow and expand and change, and I knew I had to set them aside to do so. So imagine my surprise when I finally unpacked the studio and had utterly no desire to be down there or to create anything.
It’s been about a month now, and I feel like I’m loosing my identity. Why am I not creating things? Who am I if I don’t make stuff? Also, how am I supposed to make stuff now with zero time to myself? Meeting new people and explaining what I do has become awful.
Point being: change and growth kind of totally suck. I had forgotten this. Growth hurts. It can be kind of scary. But it’s better than the alternative: stagnation.
So. I’m still basically on the couch. But at least I’ve realized that it’s totally okay and normal to be in this exhausted, deflated phase. Just realizing this and allowing myself to feel it has made me feel better. And what do you know, I am not writing this on the couch.