The noise after...

Two weeks ago, my coronart efforts seemed to crash. I had been doing one new piece a day for 54 days straight, in addition to my 200 days straight of Daily Ink Monsters, and was juggling lockdown family life, other artistic projects, jobs, and selling art, and trying to stay sane despite my bipolar cycles. So when the lockdowns here in Norway lightened, and and wife and kids went back to work & school & kindergarten, I was expecting a huge relief.

My psyche is heavily affected by the level of social noise around me. Forget about festivals and parties, even the limited daily interactions of a sheltered family existence will make my jaws clench, while the tentacles of stress reach further down the neck and shoulders and spine. The full effect of the stress often doesn’t manifest before the day after, with debilitating migraines and anxiety attacks.

Towards the end of the lockdown period I had near constant headaches, and only the prospect of the imminent pockets of solitude kept me clawing my way forwards.

When the kids and wife finally went back to their daily doings, I didn’t find silence. I found a cacophony of screaming thoughts attacking me from all directions. Kind of like leaving a loud concert, expecting the relief of silence, but once outside you start hearing the ringing in your ears seemingly louder than anything that came before.

I couldn’t focus on work. The coronart that had kept me going through the lockdowns, became a chain around my neck. I had to stop. I had to take a break.

But there are no breaks.

Freed from both the shackles of lockdowns and daily coronart, I found the chaos of my mind even louder. Because there are no breaks.

Luckily, throughout the lockdown period I had to summon up a great force within myself to withstand both the onset of depression and hypomania, so I had the tools. Exercise, meditation, balance, the daily grind. I knew what to do, and I just had to start doing it proper. And now I feel like I’m finally back on track.

I won’t be doing daily coronart anymore, the time for that is gone for now, but I’ll try to get one or two new ones each week. I have a pile of sold drawings that I need to start shipping. I have jobs and job requests that I need to sort through. And I have to continue focusing on the physical and mental activities that keep driving me forward. Because… There are no breaks.

There’s forwards and backwards, slow and fast, up and down, but no breaks.

Anything that keeps the momentum of my life going towards a better place, I have to grab onto like my life depended on it. And everything else is just noise.

#coronart day 55: Noise.