The mind is like a muscle. It needs to be exercised or it will get fat, lazy, sluggish, and just otherwise nonproductive. I've been feeling this exact thing the last couple of years since finishing my Master's. I seriously needed a break after all that, as I had been in school basically nonstop from age 5 to age 26 and frankly, I was worn out. The end of my Master's was very intense and I tried to hit the ground running with the inevitable post-graduation job search, which was rather draining in itself, especially after hearing "no" (or nothing at all) as many times as I did, even when I set my goal to send out 5-10 applications and/or resumes a day. I did this for months, got very sick a couple of times, broke my foot, found a couple horrible jobs, started making jewelry in the hopes of selling it, then moved back home. While relieved to be home where I could actually get full-time work, I was extremely discouraged about my future as a composer. I've been telling myself ever since that I have more opportunities for that here because I'm local and I likely know people involved in such projects simply because I grew up here and was out at the Black Hills Playhouse a few times. That's several stories in itself, but suffice it to say that I do have connections to the arts community in the Hills, should I choose to take advantage of that.
I tried to stay at my first job here as long as I could. It was good money for here, but I was working something like 55 hours a week without overtime and I was barely making it to Symphony rehearsals and concerts, never mind sleeping and eating and trying to be creative in any fashion. It was a truly horrid job... I was the manager of a small loan company whose entire goal was to get people stuck in a credit hole so we could keep collecting loan fees off of them. I've never had any management experience or training, never worked with any kind of financial institution, and they tossed me in with minimal training so I had no idea what I was doing, and the poor girl that was already working there was mad at me for getting hired off the street for the management position. Don't blame her one bit for that, and we ended up being friends once she realized how little they prepared me for it. I got in serious trouble the one day we didn't make a new loan... it was a Saturday, we were only open half the day, and it was blizzarding. I saw maybe 3 cars all morning, and none of them stopped for us. We were expected, and actually required, to entice people to renew their loans (after a certain point, they would be eligible to miss a payment if they renewed), and a renewed loan collects a new loan fee and keeps the ridiculous interest rate rolling in. I couldn't sleep at night with that job. I only lasted about 6 weeks.
After that was full-time retail and that was significantly less stressful, but still not a good job. Irregular schedule (sporadic enough that it was impractical to get another job), hours not guaranteed, minimum wage (started out a tiny bit over that, because of my retail experience... whoopee.), and the store made it quite clear that there was no room for advancement for any of us when they hired a new assistant manager off the street with a little management experience but not in retail. Shortly after that, and partly because they refused to hold one employee to the same standards that they expected from everyone else, I started looking around for new jobs, found my insurance one, and put in my notice.
I do like my job. I'm still just part-time, but the better work I do the better our agency does and I get directly rewarded for that, so I have some sort of control over where I go here. It gives me time to go to Symphony, make and sell my jewelry, and work on my house. I'm still ridiculously poor, but I'm much happier here than I was at the other two jobs.
Back to my point. My job now has its challenging moments when I need to figure out how to solve someone's insurance problem, remember how to work the policy management program or enter a new homeowners policy, decipher a confusing billing statement, things like that. Mostly, I sit there by myself and scan and upload documents to their appropriate policies. It's rather brain-melting once you've done it for a few hours. I definitely feel like I'm losing sharpness (as can be proven by the rambly nature of this entire post... apologies!) and I'm riddled with guilt about not working on my music. I'm getting a decent amount done with jewelry, and though I need to shift gears a little for the fall, it's basically in line with what it needs to be for now. I need to be writing more. I need to be practicing my instruments. My symphony will need me on horn in the spring when we play Mahler's 1st Symphony and I'd really like to put together a decent audition for that in the fall so that maybe I can play horn in a couple other concerts too. That's the instrument I got my degree in, so I'd rather be on that, it was just so much easier to get the cello skills back up and I didn't have to audition on that.
I got my cello out for a bit tonight and after I'm done writing here I'll get my horn out for a little bit before bed. I took a mouthpiece to work to buzz on when I'm alone so that will help a lot to get my chops back up.
Creativity is also like a muscle, but one that needs a certain set of parameters in order to cooperate. Only when one is regularly working with it can it come at will; before that it's very hard to snuff out and give up on. That's what I've been wrestling with since I graduated. I worked so hard on my thesis that I was pretty well burned out and it's been ridiculously hard to get back on the bandwagon. My dad and I went to the 1345 Film Festival last weekend and I was impressed and inspired by the short, cute, low-budget films that 100+ people showed up to watch in Art Alley downtown. It inspired me to get back on track and submit a short or 2 next year so I can make some connections with these people and start working on films again.
Next thing I need to do is figure out how I can start to get my composer brain back. Maybe I should take a pad of staff paper to work and jot down ideas to work on when I get home? I can't find the pad I was using in school so I'll need to get a new one. I'll probably need to retrain my ear as far as getting the right intervals from my head to the page. I don't want to skimp on my filing responsibilities, but I do need to be able to take 10-15 minutes here and there to do something that actually uses my brain, otherwise I feel like a pile of mush by the time I get home.
I didn't intend this to be as rambling or whiny as it ended up to be, but I think I needed to get all that written down so I can get on with finding solutions and making a plan. Now, time for a little horn blowing, then bedtime!
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