It’s Sunday night and I am preparing myself mentally for Monday, the day I usually have my weekly breakdown, the day I routinely question every life choice I have ever made and wonder where I could have already been by now if I had chosen better.

And I’m thinking of you.

I’m wondering how many people out there go through the same struggle–the struggle to maintain your sanity while simultaneously working for a living and pursuing your dream project. I’m gonna guess there are a lot of us. A lot a lot.

Sometimes I wonder what this drive is inside of me, this need to create, to make stuff. Over the past year it has, at times, felt meaningless while at other times it was the only thing I could find in the world that mattered. I’ve come to realize that it’s just me. It’s who I am.

I don’t have a lot of cerebral things to say about my creative work. Not really. The message, the theme, the higher meaning, I’m not sure it’s all there in every sentence or in every shot. All I know is that stories pop into my head and come through me onto the page or onto the screen. And I know that if I don’t make stuff I go a little crazy and my life, my middle-aged American life, gets really, really heavy.

If I don’t make stuff the reality of another Zoom meeting or a Powerpoint telling me how to practice self care will send me over the edge. I will sit with my top half dressed in business casual while my bottom half is still in my pajamas and I will know that if I have to download one more damned pdf file I will absolutely snap.

Am I having a midlife crisis? Am I having a crisis? Am I having a life?

The only thing that tells me with any certainty that I am, indeed, having a life, are the things I create. Personally I have created two brilliant children, a loving romantic relationship, good friendships, a cozy home, and an evolving garden. Artistically I create books and movies, and I have co-created this company with my sister, Terri (one of my favorite human beings on earth).

I’m hoping all of you who share this dread of Monday with me can find the goodness that is already in your life, or is on its way, so you can face your week with grace and good humor. I will try to do that, too. Perhaps on the other side of our dreams we will fully appreciate everything we had to do to reach them.

Here’s a song Terri shared with me that captures the struggle… “Fetch Your Life”…I’m gonna listen to it on a loop tomorrow!

-Darci