Curses
For some time now, I have been trying to figure out how to make time to create without some sort of guilt hanging over my head. I have this insatiable thirst to be of some kind of worth in the artist community. There is an urge that is buried deep within me to be appreciated for my talents and inspired to become greater at what I do.
But guilt over rides all ideas of grander. I don’t feel guilty about creating but about what I can’t be doing if I take time to create. I feel like family-life will loose too much of me if I create and I follow that with feelings that that piece of me is something that can’t, or shouldn’t, be sacrificed. And yet they don’t get the best of me either because I am so frustrated that no one sees how much this energy gets pent up and unreleased.
Guilt, as I was told by my mother and sister, is something you birth after each child and you must bare it along with the journey. This is an unfair curse as I see it. Why should I feel guilty to fill my need as an artist, taking time to create things that flow from my heart? And yet I feel overwhelmed with guilt if I even consider making time for this outlet to create. Do other mothers struggle with guilt as I do? It’s exactly like that saying “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” No matter what I do, I feel guilty. Having so much responsibility to other people is heart wrenching. Being burdened with this feeling that others needs are completely more important than my own, the tears well up. And I think of how much I want to create and be an inspiration to others. Yet I make them (these tears and longings) subside knowing “my time will come” and that this long and dry time in my life is “just a season.” The hour is late, and some would be delighted in their pride to say “well, you’ve made your choices. Suck up the pain and move on.” But the reality is this: creating is more than just a whimsical moment, it is the heart and soul of those whom it possesses. It grabs their very being, strangling them from air until they let it break forth. And then, and only then do they get to breathe…
