Learning to Juggle

I have a dilemma. A dilemma of the best sort, but a dilemma none the less. Two major pursuits have come to the forefront of my life in the past year, and both demand an intense amount of time. One, Trinabags, is my handbag business, the other, my need to make art. Of course these things are not mutually exclusive. There is no saying I can't do one while working on the other. But for me, a person who strives to put everything I have into everything I do, it is exhausting! This constant juggling between one and the other is taxing me both physically and emotionally (have been sick more times in the past year than in the past five years put together.)

Recently I fancied I'd found a solution to this problem. I gave myself a schedule. One week I would work solely on Trinabags, the next, sculpture. For a little while it was working like a charm. If something came up during the wrong week, instead of stressing about how I was going to get everything done, I simply said, "Nope, not the right week. It can wait."

But what I am finding, is that the moment I get really excited about one venture or the other, something happens to remind me that I have all these balls flying furiously through the air and one missed step would mean they all come careening back down to earth. For example; Last week was a sculpture week, and it was a great week. I produced more in those seven days and developed more new ideas than I had in months. But as I was scooting happily along rolling plastic bags, I got a great email from my younger sister asking when my new website would be live because all the women at her internship love them and want to buy one. So, I dropped everything and got back to writing copy and cutting fabric so when my site does goes live, (hopefully NEXT WEEK!!!!) I will be ready with new bags and a killer message. Artwork successfully stalled.

Again, not two days later, I get an email from my college where a sculpture of mine will be displayed, reminding artists that all the work is due in Virginia next week. No sweat, I'll just stop cutting this fabric here and start fixing that sculpture I have to send out on Monday. Are you beginning to sense my problem?

So how do I do it? How do I keep doing the things that I love without sacrificing my sanity or every spare moment of my social life? Good grief, God only knows what I'll do when I have a family someday. All things considered however, how very lucky I am to have such dreams with such tangible possibilities of their actually coming to fruition. Who would have thought that Trina, the girl who spent her summers in trees reading books and burning her face with flaming marshmallows would be a crazy bag lady/artist freak. Actually come to think of it, those two childhood examples might in fact, not leave you so very surprised by that outcome. :)