Last night, after watching the video above, I called my sister-from-another-mister to cuss and discuss something I’ve been avoiding like the plague since crawling out of my “agoraphobic cave” last year: my burnout.
For a while, I thought getting back out into the world would fix everything. Talking to people again. Seeing friends. Leaving the house. In my heart of hearts, I believed those were the missing pieces.
But it turns out my life, like most people’s lives, is more complicated than that.
My patient and wise chosen sister reminded me of something I’ve said to her many times over the years: “Grief isn’t linear.” It doesn’t follow a tidy schedule. It fades into the background and then hits you in the face when you least expect it.
The truth is I’m still grieving the death of my friend Abby. I miss her warmth, her generosity, her laughter. I miss her caring and sharing. I even miss her moaning and groaning.
That Abby sure was a good egg. My world is quieter without her in it. Some days that silence lands heavier than others. This week has been a series of those days.
Grief has a way of bleeding into everything else in your life, especially when your business and your pleasure are one and the same.
As a self-employed creative, work-life balance is easier to preach than practice. My work isn’t just a job. It’s my ideas, my creativity, my curiosity, my livelihood, and my sense of purpose all wrapped up together.
Most days I’m grateful for it all. I built this strange little creative life on purpose.
But lately, everything is taking longer than expected. The montages I’m working on are still works in progress. The research rabbit holes are still calling my name. Emails still need answering. Posts still need writing.
My creative gears keep turning even as my emotional ones grind a little slower.
Grief takes a lot of energy. Energy I don’t always have. Or realize I’m spending until the creative well starts running dry.
It’s easy to look at friends and colleagues and start making comparisons.
Some seem to have simpler lives, more stable and successful careers, clearer paths, traditional jobs that end at the end of the day.
Comparison isn’t especially helpful, but it’s human. Everyone’s life looks simpler from the outside, and everyone is carrying something you can’t see.
When I’m moving slower than usual, when projects take longer than expected, when the creative well feels a little shallow, it’s easy to feel like I’m falling behind.
The montages are coming along, but more slowly than I’d like. The ideas are still there, but take longer to gather. The energy comes and goes in waves.
And maybe that’s the part I’m still learning to accept.
Grief doesn’t just break our hearts. It quietly rearranges our capacities. Things that once felt easy can take more effort. Focus slips. The pace changes.
Instead of fighting that reality, maybe there’s another way to look at it.
Less “I should be doing more.”
More “I could move a little slower.”
Less measuring myself against everyone else.
More remembering that my life has its own irregular heartbeat.
The creative life isn’t like a factory job. It’s more like the tide, sometimes surging with energy and momentum, sometimes pulling back and leaving the shoreline quiet and still. Grief moves the same way. Some days it rises and fills everything. Other days it recedes, leaving a silence that is just as deep.
The rhythms cannot be rushed, and the pauses are as essential as the waves.
Right now, things feel a little like low tide.
My cuss-and-discuss call last night didn’t magically solve everything, but talking it through helped relieve some of the tension and frustration with myself. It also left me with a small realization:
What I’m feeling might look like burnout. But underneath it all, it’s really grief.
The subtle art of self-care, at least for now, might simply mean giving myself permission to move through this season at the pace I can manage.
Not the pace I wish I could move.
Not the pace other people seem to be moving.
Just the one that is realistic for me.
Keep calm and live on!
Clint 🌈✌️
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY
03-27 = Arthur Mitchell (1934-2018) = American dancer and choreographer 🌈
03-27 = Bob Mizer (1922-1992) = American photographer and filmmaker 🌈
03-27 = Frank O’Hara (1926-1966) = American writer 🌈
03-27 = Maria Schneider (1952-2011) = French actress 🌈
03-27 = Pat Bond (1925-1990) = American actor 🌈
MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY
There are treasures untold, like the Bob Mizer estate stuff you linked to. Wow. And weighed down by grief. Just breathe my friend. Listen to music. Sit in the sun. Play with critters if you or your friends have any. Go to a beach, get a good chair, and just look at the waves. Do that at sunset. Eat hot dogs at a truck stand. And, if tears come, let them. Don't worry about us, if you can manage for a while. You do you.
Grief and mourning are complex processes and deeply individual. Despite the "stages of grief" each person has their own process as it is tied in with - not only with spiritual and religious beliefs - but also personal memories, both happy and sad. It is as if, each griever loses part of themselves. I have already told you that I don't believe in heaven or hell; that the physical body dies, that the spirit lives for eternity and, many people can feel the presence of a family or friendship person - often able to have conversations. Be gentle and caring of yourself, Clint. Clarke has some helpful suggestions for you to heed.