A Workaholic on Purpose: here I go again (and again, and again, and again).

As part of a larger visual art project, I’ve been culling through old love letters again. I’m finishing up the ritualized re-reading, the first stage of making one of my ephemeral (and wearable!) sculptures. Yesterday, a confession made to my first love jumped off of the page at me.

“I have been fearing lately that I am indeed a workaholic - To remedy this (after having a nervous breakdown the final week of the Man of La Mancha production…) I quit that set design job and registered for half of the classes at Mass Art next semester. I really want to focus on my art and graduate work. But, as Terry says - oh, bullshit - you WILL fill the time somehow, somewhere - you’ll always make sure you’re busy. I guess I thrive on it - it’s just that it was really harmful to me physically, emotionally, and intellectually this past semester. So, I needed to make some changes.”

This was written inn 1993 by a 23 year old Laurie who was simultaneously getting a double masters degree, working in the art department in a big school district, and doing ‘side jobs’ as a set designer and design instructor in two venues. Terry was my ‘Art Father’, my earliest mentor as a teacher who ultimately became my boss, colleague, and friend.

Reading the implied inevitability of my tendency to overwork in his comments stings a bit. I wonder now why he didn’t discourage it. After all, he had seen my high school melt downs after each cycle of all nighters as I aimed for top grades. I suspect as a fellow high achiever, he could relate to a sense of ‘drive’ that was instinctual and perhaps, unchangeable?

Our brand of high achieving was not just a chase for accolades, it was in the holy name of teaching and creating for the enrichment of others - how can you argue with that kind of urge to do good?

A snippet from a letter written only two months before the confession sets the stage for the Man of La Mancha ‘nervous breakdown’. I had a clear early sign - anxiety - paired with the knowledge that the workload was ‘absolute craziness’, and pushed my agenda forth anyway.

Note the swarming bees as bolero jacket dream!

Yes, I have made a note to consider this NOW as a new wearable sculpture idea. The interesting intersection with my current life in Spain and existing sculptures making use of the matador garb is not lost on me. But, then, this would mean adding another project onto my already full plate. Part of my hunger for work is deeply intertwined with my indomitable creative spirit. This dilemma is still alive and well within me. Only now, so many years later, repetitive use injuries stop me faster from starting something I may not be able to finish.

The Man of La Mancha set mentioned in the love letter was for the high school fall production. As the Art Advisor to the Stage, I taught the students how to make all of the armor, the other costumes, and props while I took it upon myself to complete the most arduous (and dangerous) task of removing all of the black backdrop curtains and painting the actual cinder-block walls of the theater to look like grey castle walls.

Picture this:

To realize my vision, I had to climb an impossibly tall and rickety wooden ladder and affix paint rollers onto extension poles to reach even higher spots. To make the faux-stone finish more ‘painterly’, I hooked my right foot into the ladder rung, extended my left leg out straight like a ballerina to counter the opposite force of my right hand and arm gripping the painter’s pole, while my left hand held the ladder frame tightly. With just one foot and one hand keeping me in place, I made grand gestural stokes with the rollers against the wall in an awkward arabesque.

I’m quite certain this was the time when sciatic nerve distress became a regular feature in my young career. I was determined to complete the 40 foot (about 12M) wall, as though the audience would place more importance on the top edges of the backdrop over their son or daughter’s performances. I was unable NOT to. I was so determined that I completed this ladder work at night with no one in the building except for a handful of custodians who were too far away to hear the bangs of the staple gun and hammer I dropped from up there.

Thirty-three years later I am ‘working the program.’ While I have dipped in and out of AA 12-step literature over the years, my commitment to applying the recovery tenets more that of a spectator because, much less so than alcohol or narcotics, my particular addictive-compulsive behaviors were still glamorized as righteous ambition in the hustle culture of the northeastern United States.

I also had to work out the nuances of compulsive behaviors which I could temper with the forces of will and self-discipline; to distinguish these from the more apt Process Addiction feature of behavioral addictions like workaholism.

I share a glimpse of what ‘the work’ looks like in my case. I have my notebooks where I process my relationship to each of the recovery steps, reflecting and revising as often as necessary.

The thing is, my mission to expand Creative Intelligence around the world has called me to become self employed as I develop a methodology and the platforms on which to share it. Being self employed can easily translate into one person doing the job of five or more. Acclimating to this life-work dynamic has tossed me in and out of relapse in the last year. Oops.

These days I’m back in re-calibration mode and feeling pretty good. I have a rock-solid personalized system, like a ‘user’s manual’ that keeps me well - as long as I attend to it regularly. I won’t lie, I’ve stumbled a lot in recent months. Self-compassion has given me the grace to not beat myself up about it. It works to work a program - whether it’s the 12 Steps, another timeless system, or you very own user’s manual, I cannot recommend enough the value of RE-flecting, RE-vising, RE-defining, and RE-evaluating anything you RE-peat that is harmful to you and yours.

This is the gift that keeps on giving in my personal Creative Archivery process - the forgaging of personal ephemera and its transformation into self-development and art pieces. The intention is not a simple self-serving act of ‘living in the past’ or lathering myself in self-pity (I have been accused of these things), rather an opportunity to inventory what works and what doesn’t so I can be of better service in the world teaching and creating.

All great teachers are evolutionary optimists.

Lifelong learners thrive on moving forward and we must look out for one another, that we not burn up in the momentum. To suffer is human, to learn from that suffering is to grow, to grow is to evolve along with the inevitable, natural force of creativity.

I’ll end with another confession. I have been writing around this topic without properly naming it. I created the ‘Storyletting’ section of my stack a few weeks back to open a landing pad for more intimate stories, a step beyond the instructional scope of Creative Archivery. I began writing a short book titled A Workaholic on Purpose during the Covid lockdown and shelved it in 2023 to focus on my teaching work.

Alas, it makes sense that I cannot write and teach about integration without naming this lifelong struggle and its sister search for mental wellness. I am grateful that it’s bubbled and festered and sizzled it’s way back up to be attended to recently. I have realized I can’t in good faith share about the wild and wonderful journey of creative integration without calling myself out on this one.

I’m not sure if these entries will belong in Creative Archivery stack, the Storyletting section, or if they will warrant their own section. Let’s see.

Thanks for reading!