One Hundred Day Creative Challenge Day 98: Wide-Open Spaces

She looked at me with eyes that hadn’t seen a decent night’s sleep in months. Her hair, tied back in a scrunchy, revealed regrowth that pre-kids she wouldn’t have put up with. But, now she was a mum and priorities had changed.

‘I wish I had space in my life. After I’ve done all the housework, shopped, cooked meals, worked, put the kids to bed there’s not much space left in my head to create. What should I do?’

I knew how she felt. I’d been there in those sleep deprived fogs of daily life that seem like they will never end. You feel like you’ve lost yourself. Lost your creativity in the mundane, but beautiful, days of parenthood.

When someone tells you it’s a season. It’ll pass. Just take ten minutes a day to create. You want to smack someone or something. It’s not that simple. It’s not that easy.

So how do you make space for creativity in the midst of busyness, whether you’re a parent or not?

I remember rocking babies to sleep and holding a book over their heads so I could read. I remember hiring a 13 year old babysitter to play with my kids in the family room while I hid in my study for an hour and wrote. I remember getting up at 3am and writing before falling back to sleep for forty-five minutes to the clarion call of a baby demanding to be fed.

I remember writing while sitting in my car and waiting for my son to finish cricket training.

I remember clawing out space in a life where space was a luxury.

If you really want something you will steal, claw, fight for, wrestle for time to do what you love.

Even now in my privileged, space-filled time, there are calls on my life that take me away from creating, but I have to set boundaries. I have to make choices. I have to set time aside for space to create.

One weekend a year. One afternoon a week. One hour a day. Ten minutes a day. Whatever it is. Whatever it takes. Make some space.

One of my friends has four children. She home schools them because they live in a remote area. Every Wednesday she has someone teach her children while she sits in a café and writes. She has given herself permission to write.

Sometimes it’s the promises we make to ourselves that we break first.  Live your life with space to create.