After T1’s morning emergency downgraded from ER visit to “watch and wait”, I tried to go back to sleep. For months and now years, however, I’ve been training my body to wake up on the weekend for work.
Sometimes I also get up early enough to paint or right before signing on to do tech support. Since I’ve switched jobs, my weekends switched over to studying for teacher certification exams , and, this morning, I realized I’ve lost the ability to sleep in.
I’ve never mastered the art of using those quiet spaces for meditation or lounging for very long or doing any other activity that isn’t really an activity. So, this Sunday morning, when everyone else is still sleep, I find myself puttering around the house trying to think of what to do. One of the great things about puttering around the quiet spaces, however, is that you bump into projects you put down to do important things like work and study. This morning I bumped into my binder of creative projects — books waiting for those final illustrations or just waiting to be finished, cartoon punchlines waiting to be drawn — and remembered that it was one of the reasons I wanted to make the jump to teaching. I wanted to have more time on the weekends (and summers) to write and paint. I wanted a job where creativity is an asset, not a distraction.
Since I’ve been teaching, I’ve been able to pour so much creativity into my work life, even while studying late into the evening every night. But this rainy Sunday morning that wouldn’t let me get back to sleep, the first since my exams have been complete, was an unexpected gift. It was a reminder to get back to the creative work in my life.