Breakin' the Rulez and Rulin' Breakz

I am a big fan of therapy. Huge. I love it. I think there's something amazing about having someone that's not in the thick of the stuff to sort through it all with. I've been seeing my current therapist for a few years now and I love her. Recently, I've been joking about being selectively nihilistic. Meaning: I want to care less and do my own thing without worrying about the rules or what is expected of me. A lofty, comical goal. We laughed about it because I generally have a hard time breaking the rules and have a very deeply set moral compass that makes it very difficult. For my Enneagram peeps: I'm a Type 1...

The sentiment, however, comes from my general discontent with the state of the world. I feel like the national and global trend of highly publicized men of a particular age and class getting away with the most heinous crimes with little to no consequence makes me feel crazy. It can be easy to start to feel like nothing matters anymore. It's particularly maddening to see how the spotlight on these men has only made it even more possible for the lack of accountability to happen on the local level. I'm so tired of watching men and people with money get away with bad behavior or general ass-holery. This isn't new, but I do think there is a new energy/re-energizing of bad behavior and lack of accountability lately. 

​This compounds with my burn-out with trying to do creative community work and having to hold the line when relationships fail, break trust, or simply don't gel. To be clear, I know community work is meeesssyyyy and emotional and I don't expect that to disappear. However, disproportionately, the mental load and emotional labor has fallen on me as a woman and Latina. And that part is what's exhausting when there are back to back projects to manage. I'm grateful to have been able to take about a year off of large scale projects and community based work outside of what's required in my role at PCA&D. I think that was necessary. I can feel myself becoming jaded and frustrated and that's not where I want my work to come from. These days, I'm slowly stepping back into large scale work now that things are a little more flexible with Mr. Baby. That said, at the edges, I can feel my anxieties about re-entering the creative community creeping up. 

I want to be better about holding my boundaries around emotional labor and to also be more strategic about building breaks into my work. I also want to only say yes to things that excite rather than deplete. As I "re-open my books" to potential projects, I hope to document my projects better and build in more time for reflection and flexibility. Past projects have had such tight schedules or ambitions to make every stakeholder happy and I think I lost myself in some projects or just didn't finish in the way that I wanted. So maybe I'm not breaking the rules, but I'm making a new set that works better for me. Here's to being pickier, seeking joy and meaning, and listening to the ol' gut.

Anywho, to keep my spirits up and creative juices flowing, here is my Funspiration Station for this week: 

• Listening to Best Friends Pod (hello Creamy Sisters!)
• Warm weather 
• The concept of the sun
• Re-watching The Bear in the Big Blue House with Mr. Baby
• This stretch