Yes. So. There was and is the 3YP (3 Year Plan). It still stands in a much improved form. Some of it has been achieved, some of it [ that should have been] hasn't. Some of the steps are taking longer than others, mainly because the the bits that have been achieved were achieved more quickly than we could have imagined and I'm still spinning a little. As is clear in the completely muddled intro to this post.
After we'd been here about a month I started to feel edgy. It seemed that we/I had lost all the focus that had propelled us through the previous couple of months and I was scared that we'd fall back into bad habits: talking the talk but never, ever walking the walk.
I remember reading an interview or seeing a TV show or something where an aspiring actor spoke about heading for LA and taking a job as a waiter while looking for his big break. He said that some people make it and some just keep waiting, in both senses. And after a while, you're no longer an aspiring actor, you're just a waiter. That has stayed with me for years.
My response to this was to get moving with some regular setting of teeny, tiny goals. Baby steps that are so small that even I can't slide under them into procrastination. Of course these things work better when you're being supported by someone else so I do fortnightly planning and reporting with Jackie, here in real life, and daily 'I did something good today' check-ins with Alisa. Finally using IM to discuss something other than the Fug Girls and power-crazed three year olds. Dude.
We split things into areas of activity. For example, some of mine are Photography, Family/Home, Etsy, Crappy Admin (I hate paperwork and avoid it at any opportunity thus causing myself great and unnecessary stress) and Me (the much vaunted 'personal care' type stuff, be it a long hot bath, a long cold walk or a short, sharp talking to. Me time.)
I have things to do within a week, two weeks, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years and 5 years. Hardly revolutionary I know, but I've never done it before. The short term things are the teeny, tiny steps; the 5 year goals are the Big Dreams. I like this because I tend to spend so much time thinking about what exactly the Big Dreams might be that I don't actually take any tiny steps. This way, I'm sorted on the Big Dream front. They're written down in b&w. Waiting. I don't need to keep thinking about them.
Now, a major part of the 3YP (AKA the 5YP in some areas) is my work. I've already said that I want to do dog photography, eventually have it take over from my current part-time work and then overtake it in terms of income.
I have been thinking of the photography as My Big Creative Dream. The thing that my whole life I've been hunting: my passion (anyone else seeing Steve Martin as a 'poor black kid', musing on his Special Purpose?). Why did I not have a passion? My god, I've spent my whole life looking for my damn passion only to find 101 Things I Love (But That Aren't My Passion). Where was the thing that would have me pacing the floor? Not sleeping for days as I "create"? Feeling fulfilled in a way I'd never even imagined I could be? Yeah, yeah, yeah...
And guess what, over the last few weeks of adjusting to our new life, I was beginning to think,"Hmmm, dog photography. Why haven't I knocked over old people and a couple of toddlers in my scramble to start doing this yet? Maybe it's not my passion!"
Noooooooo! I heard the click! I did!
I put it down to adjusting. Gave myself some time. Some more time.
This last weekend I spent working on our home. Saturday morning was cleaning and tidying and fluffing the house from top to bottom. Saturday afternoon and evening were the front garden. All day Sunday was the kitchen garden. At this time of year and with no financial resources, it was all about beautifying what we already have and we suddenly have a lot.
Evie happily helped, played or read or chatted or snacked alongside me for most of both days. The animals dozed in the sun or played Cat Beats Up Dogs. The neighbours had fabulous sitar music playing all day that drifted over to caress my ears and I worked hard. I was physically exhausted and it felt fantastic. Our home looked gorgeous and that felt fantastic.
Since then I've had cause to think more on something I'd said to Jackie in our first planning meeting. I'd said, tongue in cheek, that if we had enough money to carry on as we are into the future then I wouldn't care about doing anything else. Since we've moved I have my ideal home, my ideal environment. I love my family. I love my animals. I love my life. (Yes, I'm that lucky and I never forget it.) I'm only thinking about getting out there and starting something new because we need the money.
And it's true. I realised this is true and that it changes many things. It's taken me a while to work out in what way they've changed and I'm still processing but here's what I've got:
I love photography and I adore dogs, so dog photography would be an awesome thing to do.
We need me to work. When Evie goes to school in Sept 2010, either I try to go full-time at my current employment or I get a full-time job elsewhere and spend even more time away from home.
Or I build a business between now and then. See: The 3YP
So if I have to work, let it be at this thing that I'll love.
But...
It's not my passion. It's a wonderful job but it's a job. It's a business and I need to respect that. I need to be practical and plan things and have financial targets, business goals and a grown-up attitude alongside the 'oh your dog is so handsome and I get to spend the day with you talking about dogs and taking his picture' stuff. Also, and this is very liberating for me, I can stop being precious about the idea. I can chuck it around a bit. Knock the corners off. Throw it in the back of the car. Have bad days. Swear about it. Scream with joy about it. Be real about it and not feel I have to hold it carefully cupped in my soft focus hands. I love this realisation because at heart, as I've said before many a time, as much as I love the whole floaty-skirted, dreamy, creative vibe (and I really do), for me it's not authentic. For me authentic is jeans and boots and very old t-shirts. Eyeliner and tattoos and a surfeit of dog hair on my clothes. I'm 100 times more likely to be watching 'Desperate Romantics' on TV than being desperately romantic myself.
My passion? Well, well, well...it was in my back yard all along. In fact is is my back yard. Now that I live somewhere I really love with people I really love, I find that my passion is here with them. What I work to maintain is not my 'creative destiny' out there in the world, it's my home. I don't mean in a 50s Housewife kind of way - not that there's anything wrong with that if that's your thing - I mean in a really profound way. In caring for and working creatively with my home I am physically very active and outside a lot. Both of these things are extremely important to my well-being physically, emotionally and yes, spiritually. The results are both instant and ongoing, internally and externally. It strengthens the bond between the three of us. It connects me with the land and a building that is so old it feels that it has become part of that land - it is a real boy now! And it creates a place that is aesthetically pleasing to me and that, almost more than anything apart from my family, makes me feel alive and joyful and grateful.
On Wednesday I had the most stressful day I've had in years. A catalogue of bad luck, bad timing, forgetfulness and cumulative stress meant the whole gloriously sunny day was wasted on me as I lurched from one panic to another. Central to the melodrama was the loss of my purse (as in small thing that holds money and cards, not as in handbag). When at 6pm I surrendered and gave up the search - beside myself with what this was going to mean for short term financial issues - I took a deep breath and headed to my sister's across the garden. There in front of me, sitting in full view, was my purse.
In my back yard, the last place I'd looked.
And that, is the Universe at work if ever I saw it. Okay already. I get it.
