You can start anytime.
Jerry Saltz, How to be an artist
I’m big on dates of significance. Up until the pandemic, I started my year on 13 July or (1 July) because that’s when I would start my life’s new year. Around the end of the regular year, I would be concerned about being on track with what I decided to do last summer.
December 2019 was going to be different. I tried to make a big plan for 2020. I had mostly recovered from my MS attack of a year earlier, I was living in a new town, I was making new friends, I had a new hobby. It was the perfect time to pull the trigger on some grand ideas. Then the world shut down just weeks later.
During all of this madness, I tried to regroup as always the following summer. July 2020 was a huge disappointment as not enough about the world had changed for my big fucking plans. The world continued to be uncooperative in December 2020 as well.
In June 2021, my therapist and I were talking about my aimless, rudderless existence and the overwhelming feeling of languishing I had going on.
Languish
– to be or become feeble, weak, or enervated
– to be or live in a state of depression or decreasing vitality
– to become dispirited
She suggested that I start working on a Post-Pandemic Plan.
It took me two months to get into draft form; it’s still not quite in a useable state but I know what I want to do with this one life I have ahead of me.
Because life is just to long to not waste time, I shelved the whole thing for some magical later, more perfect time to do all the things.
The world reopened, restrictions went away, things closed again, restrictions returned, etc, etc.
I have finally accepted that if I’m waiting on the world to change into the ideal set of circumstances so I can pursue what I say I want, I’m going to be waiting a long fucking time.
It’s not the Post-Pandemic yet,
Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.
Nick Fury, The Avengers (2012)
Adapt and overcome. Do the things I say I want to do.
Find a way to live my best artist’s life while society still stands.
START NOW
…I knew that nothing could be worse than what I was feeling. So… I finally got serious – living proof that it’s never too late.
Jerry Saltz, How to be an artist