Carving Direction Out Of The Clouds

Happy New Year, friends!

So, last post I personally shared talked about resolutions/intentions for the year, and I mentioned to you guys this year is the year of simplicity for me, after a year of what could be defined as ungrounded and very transitory. Let me explain.

I’m not sure how many of you know, but from Spring of 2016 to Fall of 2019, I was in and out of Europe, very much living the gypsy lifestyle — housesitting place to place, writing, making money by airbnb’ing my home back in Toronto, and honestly not doing much else (work-wise anyway). It was a period of time I’m so grateful I was afforded, because I started writing fiction for the first time since I was a pre-teen, and because, with all that space to think, I got to know myself really well, and, as it turns out, actually like the person I am (after years of being uncertain, and too, too rough on myself).

Well, my mum has just gotten back to Europe herself for the next four months, and I suppose that’s what’s brought this reflection out of me now. She asked if I wanted to come visit her for a few weeks and for the first time in a long time I really have no desire to go. I felt this coming as I was on my last sit this past summer in France. I began to think, much as I adored all the time I got to spend with my friends over there, I really was craving my own home. And I had the strongest feeling that suggested it was time to nurture my relationships back at home too—I mean, it had gotten to the point where I was spending so much time away from the people that mattered to me there that I consistently found myself asked whether I’d be around this month or that. In the end, what I was craving was stability. I’d done the thing. I’d gone out, learned who I was, and it became all too clear that it was time to come home.

Needless to say, I had to pick up a good amount of work in order to do that, since, if I wasn’t airbnb’ing my home, I had no good other source of income other than a few freelance jobs here and there. And that’s when things got a little messy. Last fall, I took on so much work that the holidays became a flurry of deadlines and on-boarding, and a pit where rest time came to die.

And so, that’s why this year, with edits of The Play House to focus on (not to mention the publishing process to get going on!), I’m working to strip back, focus on what matters. It seems I tend to oscillate from one extreme to the next — writing & traveling only to working & hermitting at home only. And none of those cater to the goal of spending time with the people I love.

So, my plan is this, because there must be a plan otherwise my “goal” of simplicity becomes only a wish: it’s time to get uncomfortable, up my prices and set better boundaries. It’s time to stop trying to do everything under the sun, and get good at very few things.

I share this all to explain more about the impetus of the last blog post. I share this all to include you guys in my journey of this life. And finally, I share this all with the hope that you’ll let me know what’s on your mind this year, where you’re at in your own journey, and to facilitate these types of conversations. Because I think having direction is so important for creatives, and we don’t just “acquire” direction, we have to carve it out of the clouds we so often float away into.

Until later pals,

Mackenzie