Three Months At A Time

If you’re like me, you think about the above meme too often.

Maybe, like me, you’ve invisioned an outcome, you’ve gathered the supplies you think will need to achieve it…and then…

You are stalled. With more stuff in your life. Without having an idea of what steps will help you toward that end goal.

Sometimes you gather all those supplies, find the time, and even know what steps you’ll take…and then realize there’s another task you need to get out of the way.

That is me right now. I had the idea that I would sit and write about how current my three-month goal is teaching me more about how to plan. It’d be helpful for me and perhaps for any of you who like to figure out ways to get through life with less wasted effort.

I can’t do that right now. I have some tidying up to do.

My last blog entry was about how sometimes the most useful/productive thing one can do to create is to take the time to organize and put away what has come before. That’s me RIGHT now.

I need to write about that gap between when I landed in America and when I started to write this blog.

Backstory

From September 2022 to April 15 2023 I had a clear goal, wrap up and leave my life in Japan and move back to my hometown. It came with it a series of essential steps. I had to occasionally sit down, brainstorm those steps (oh, I mind-mapped a lot) and prioritize them for the following weeks and months. So many checklists.

I didn’t have to plan beyond those six months. Three months in I only had to look three months out. I didn’t have to double check my three month plan and create an outline of the three months that would follow.

I was returning to my hometown and would be living with my mother indefinitely. I had a safety net. I didn’t have find an apartment as I was moving out of one. I didn’t have to line up a job or source of income. In fact my mother told me, in no uncertain terms, to not even try to get a job for at least three month… so I could decompress and I didn’t rush into anything that didn’t suit me.

I didn’t start planning the rest of my life before I left Japan. I just knew that I wanted to focus more on art. “Doing art on the side” wasn’t working for feeding my heart and soul. I wanted art to be part of how I made money and lived.

April, May, June…what did I do with those three months of decompressing?

I threw myself into bursts of making and sewing. I didn’t have all my supplies in America yet but I did have two sewing machines, a half finished sculpture, and sculpting materials.
I taught myself a lot about sculpting with polymer clay.
I substitute taught dance for the first eight Monday nights I was home.
I stayed up late with my boyfriend.
I saw my father more
I drank and vaped pot more, with my boyfriend.
I reconnected with friends.
I bought a lot of cheap vintage clothes.
I altered a LOT of clothing to fit me because moving from Japan took at least 15lbs off me and hasn’t put it back.

In retrospect, I didn’t decompress. I unfurled in many directions.

I asked anyone and everyone what jobs they could see me doing.

The most appealing was the idea of doing seasonal costuming for ballet/theater/opera. It would combine my love of working with my hands, intense bursts of problem solving, the rush of deadlines, and being around artistic people. It could be a way to have seasonal well-paying work that I enjoyed that would allow me off-seasons of making my own art work and figuring out what that meant.

I’m not formally trained though and would need to learn more.

July, August, September; the following three months.

Almost three months on the dot, I started working an alterations shop. I thought this would be the key to gaining those costume/alteration skills for future income streams.

For three months I worked as a “contract employee” (I wasn’t) Mon-Fri from 10-5 learning the ropes on the job under constant deadline. We were literally finishing hems and tickets the hour before people were slated to pick up their garments.

The sewing room was chaotic. I don’t think you have to sew to understand that things were just…everywhere.

Outside of the owners, I was the only employee who could work in back and handle customers out front, because I spoke English…so I often did both. I joked with my friends that I was living the immigrant experience…but really I wasn’t. I was the only employee who didn’t stay later, beyond the work hours, for more hours.

There was pressure from the owners to run the store in December so they could take a vacation (because: English speaking).

I loved the rush. I loved physically seeing progress. I loved gaining new skills

I resented aspects of my job though. There was so much unessential chaos and clutter. There was pressure to work more hours if I wanted to learn more techniques beyond the most basic of hems and tapers, and that felt manipulative.

I started to crack.

I had carpal tunnel flare up in both wrists. I was wearing braces to sleep and work. I developed tennis elbow in my left elbow.

I became increasingly aware of how dodgy it was to be a contract employee and how much I didn’t even want to unpack what that might mean for everyone else without citizenship and a family safety net.

Three months in, I used the impact on my wrists as a reason to end my time there and left the alteration shop on good terms but with no intention of going back.

I was crushed. I’d been taking steps toward the goal of having sewing be part of my income, ideally seasonal work, and now I was in physical pain and stepping away from that path. Temporarily? Permanently? I couldn’t say.

And the rest of my life was a roller coaster.

I was not yet on any ADHD medication.

American healthcare backlogs meant that in my time home I’d run out of the SNRI medication I was on for ADHD. I had intense mood swings and was rescued by a friend (who is an OBGYN ) who was able to refill my Rx when she was in town. My asthma and allergy medication also ran out and I ended up in the ER after an particularly bad asthma attack.

I finally had the rest of my art/making supplies and items from Japan but I wasn’t sure what role dolls and that side of my making would play in my life, if any.

As I started unpacking my boxes from Japan I was also bringing home new boxes from my Father and Stepmother’s home. The items from his life, including so many gifts I gave to him over the years, that were now mine. This was packing and sorting before his death.

My father’s initial tumor was gone but we learned that the radiation had created a new tumor that could not be cured.

When I make a Jiminy Cricket doll in a few months I’ll be ‘unpacking’ more of those boxes figuratively…and literally.

My relationship became more emotionally charged and chaotic. We fought a lot.

I don’t remember much of the end of September.

I unfurled a lot more.
I abstained from any marijuana for a month so I could have a clear test and get ADHD medication
I flew to Baltimore, saw friends, performed to live music again.
I finished my last weeks at work.
I bought more vintage clothing and had the alteration skills to fix them up.
My father was in and out of hospitals.
I organized my sewing patterns
I played video games…I’d never owned a gaming console before but my boyfriend had an extra X-box

October, November, December

October

I did finally have a prescription for Adderall! I finally had prescriptions for my asthma and allergies.

I might have hoped to use my extra time in October to reset my goals and life path but October wasn’t going to let me. It’s fair to say that for 2 1/2 months I was on survival mode, doing whatever I needed to do to get through the days without having extra energy to focus on the future.

In October, a day after of my boyfriend had a medical issue that took him out physically and emotionally, my father’s condition deteriorated swiftly.

He went into hospice and died three days later.

November

I got through the days. I started putting myself back together. That was the only real goal.

I returned to dolls. I made dolls. I sculpted.

I worked out.

I started taking aerial silks classes.

I made sure to connect with friends on the regular.

I organized.

I met some dancers in the area.

I journaled.

…and then my boyfriend’s apartment flooded and I helped him, still not quite himself, move into a hotel paid for by the renter’s insurance. He’s still there.

December

I started my part-time suit job.

I opened an Etsy shop.

I worked on my physical flexibility.

I meticulously photographed and sorted my doll-related supplies and stock.

I took time off of aerial silks because my elbow was still impaired.

I decided to set a three month goal for January, February, March.

Now

Now I’m here.

A month and a few days into my three month goal…and knowing that next few weeks;

-I should write the blog about planning that I was planning to write today.

-I need to start calculating what I’ve learned about myself so far within this three-month goal to create the structure for my goals beyond March. I don’t need to set those next goals but I do need to brainstorm/mind-map/scaffold them and start clarifying what I mean by making art a larger part of what I live off of MEANS.

Simply focusing on those three months is not enough to continue my forward momentum. Because life will not stop at the end of March and wait for me to think.

And thus, I have put nine months in some sort of order. my mind is now free to set the mise en place for tomorrows.

Problem solving: LOL Doll

Putting things away.