Living a full life?

Bronzey brown leaves keep fluttering by my bedroom window. I’m snuggled in my bed, under a comforter and wearing an oversized hooded knit sweater, cream colored. The sky is grey, so are the trees, and the light. The yards are still green, but the marsh grasses surrounding the neighborhood have all browned to a golden ochre. 

Dreary gray day outside, where are you snow?

My normally very quiet neighborhood currently echoes with the sounds of garbage day, and roofers replacing the roofs that were damaged by hail back in August. (Ours gets replaced in the next couple week.)

I’m listening to Christmas music. I’m waiting for snowflakes. 

Toasty socks for a blustery day.

While I love and adore being an artist and having my studio at home, there are times like today that I miss having a studio space in an arts building. I’ve been particularly lonely and anxious lately. I suspect the impending Minnesota winter (good bye sun) is a big contributing factor. But the bigger issue is the isolation. 

I previously belong to a couple of guilds/artist groups. I have let one of those lapse, and the other just hasn’t worked out. I’ve had something else going on every time there was a meeting. (Same thing with a third group I was thinking of joining, bad timing!)

I am an introvert, but a sociable introvert. The trouble is, sometimes I get stuck in a loop where I don’t want to go out, don’t want to socialize, and cloister myself away in my studio or my bedroom (where I generally do my research and writing from my laptop.) It’s fine at first, but then I will suddenly find myself anxiety ridden, mildly depressed and lonely. This is the same time I realize I have stopped feeling creative, and have stopped…well, doing any thing creative.

Yesterday while I was at the gym, I was reading Artful Blogging. One of the bloggers was talking about living a full life. She was saying how currently her life is “full”, of creativity and inspiration. She listed all the things filling her life. 

I rescued Bartholomew from Ikea. He's adjusting well to life with an artist.

That’s when it hit me, sitting on that stationary bike doing knee rehab time. My life isn’t full. I’m busy a lot yes, but it’s not full. I’m not entirely sure yet how I want to fill it. I’m pretty sure however, that the lack of “fullness” could very well be the explanation of my many prolonged creative dry spells. Now I just need to find how I want to fill my life.

Are you living a full life? How do you fill up your life?