What I Could Do with 8 Hours a Day

22 Apr What I Could Do with 8 Hours a Day

I am a highly creative person.

Take my job away and give me eight kid-free hours to “work on my art” and I will work my ass off to write, compose music, write, break for marathon-running drills, blog for RockMommy, and then play some guitar. Perhaps I’ll learn a new recipe or two to make for dinner.

My husband loves to say “you hate cooking.”

He is right. Under the circumstances – you know, having a baby whose diapers need changing and clothes need washing, in addition to a fulltime job – I definitely hate cooking! The last thing I want to do after work is skip my workout just so I can go to the grocery store to leisurely peruse ingredients, and then take an hour to cook something nice (especially when said husband is particular about what he does and doesn’t want for dinner).

Again, I am a highly creative person, but you wouldn’t know it by being around me. I’m just as creative as any rockstar who gets to write songs all day, any writer who spends his hours holed up in a log cabin to work on his “craft,” or any artist who, between brush strokes, takes hours to contemplate life.

Still, I try to remember, when I get down on my lack of time, that there are lots of creative people like me who also don’t have much time to be creative. Work takes a lot of energy. Parenting takes a lot of energy. And if you’re not a night person (I’m not), all you want to do after your kid(s) go to bed is watch a movie or go to sleep (night people don’t want to make out with their partners at night, they just want to go the f#ck to bed!).

Fantasy is fun, however. And I love thinking what I would do with those 8 hours a day if I had them all to myself. Here’s how I imagine a “typical” day in my work-free life (that includes daycare for my kid):

1. Wake up at 6:30 or 7 a.m. to feed my baby (same as always).
2. Put baby in clothes, and put on some attractive leggings/skinny jeans and a cute top (still, same as always).
3. Drop baby off at daycare, armed with computer (or, if I’m feeling more musical, with guitar).
4. Head to local coffeehouse/recording studio to spend two hours writing a song/chapter, while eating a waffle/oatmeal and cappuccino.
5. Go for a run at 10 a.m., or head to a personal training session.
6. If it’s a Tuesday or Thursday, head to a music/writing class to work on skills that would make my craft better.
7. At 1 p.m.-ish (or 1:30-ish), meet my husband or my other creative, job-free friends for lunch, maybe stopping at a vintage store to look for cute clothes.
8. Check Facebook in the afternoon, try to organize a show, or work on my personal website.
9. Perhaps at 4, because I have nothing but time in my pretend artistic schedule, I’d volunteer for a local animal shelter and walk some dogs.
10. At 5, pick up my baby, and take him to an early evening play date, exhausted from my day of artistic endeavors.

Pretty sweet day, right?

But as I fantasize, it hits me that I actually kind of like the work I do. I teach guitar to children. And I write about important healthcare policies that affect physicians. The work I do helps make the world a better person. And it gets me out of my head! (Do creative artist nonworkers even know what the Affordable Care Act is?)

You see, the world isn’t just about me, me, me, and working makes that reality really clear.

Perhaps it’s no wonder so many artists who don’t have to work are unhappy. After all, what else is there to think about when the whole world revolves around you and your art?

Still, it would be nice, even for two weeks, to have that pretend life. J