The artist lives two lives

The one we have and the one we’re meant for

Lately, I’ve been spending so much time doing the things necessary to sustain life that I haven’t been doing any of the things worth living for.

At the end of 2024, I was burning out. I wasn’t writing. I wasn’t making art. By the time my final day of work rolled around, I could barely form a coherent thought. Then - thank god - came two weeks in the Vancouver winter, spent playing in the snow, browsing through bookshops, drinking port in the deep dark evenings, and resting. Two weeks blissfully uncoupled from the grind, and when I came home I felt like an entirely different person. I felt passionate about creation again. For the two days I had off before returning to work, I wrote and I dreamed and I planned. I fully inhabited my life, and it felt like I could finally breathe again after spending months with stale air in my lungs.

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At the end of my second day back at work, I couldn’t stop crying because that feeling was gone.

When I was a child, I was terrified of having an adult job. The grind sounded unbearable and there were nights I lay awake agonizing over the prospect. These days, I am a well-boiled frog and I get through my 9-5 without complaint (lying through my teeth here), but there are weeks were the only thing that gets me through is reminding myself that this isn’t permanent. It won’t always be this way. This time is spent laying the foundation for my real life, the yet-to-come life spent writing and creating and breathing without reserve.

But I have so many ideas, and so many plans that I haven’t been able to commit to because the 9-5 is eating up everything I have to give. I don’t have the resources to live both lives — the one I have and the one I’m meant for — and it feels like the life I should be living is passing me by.

I’m an aspiring author and artist, but all I can do at the moment is aspire because my full-time job is consuming all of my energy. And that’s just me, with just one job. There are creatives out there who are working three jobs just to make ends meet, or who have devoted themselves to raising children, or caring for sick loved ones, or are otherwise occupied by the endless myriad of other lives that have overtaken their creative calling. I only have one obstacle in my way, and I know my path is easier than many others, but at the moment it still feels insurmountable.

I do what I can, and I know it’s a compromise. I write articles on the notes section of my phone instead of on an antique typewriter. I save money by not buying art supplies so I can fly home to visit family. My life is good, but it still doesn’t feel like the one that was meant for me.

So how do I find the way to my other life?

I’ve heard of the 8/8/8 rule, which reminds us that we have 8 hours to work, 8 hours to sleep, and 8 hours to pursue our passions. I work 8.5 hours, commute for 2, and sleep for 8.5-9, which leaves me with around 5 hours a day. Subtract cooking, showering, making the bed, getting ready for work, and a million other mundane things and I probably have around 3 hours in the day that are unaccounted for, and which I typically use as my allotted daily fuck-around time. But while I do enjoy a good fuck around, this time and a few hours more on weekends are all I have. So I suppose I’ll figure it out somehow, because my options are to either make it work or live an unforgivable shadow of my potential.

When I was a child I went to see a fortune teller, and as an adult I have replaced my religion with the memory of her telling me that I was a tree that would bear many fruit. This is my defense against Sylvia Plath’s fig tree, and my debt to myself.

So I’ll keep living my two lives until I find myself in the one that’s meant for me, and I’ll find moments in which to breathe until then.

B.

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Continue Reading:

POEM: Childhood Salt

Can we be cringe yet?