Day 113/Day 21: Crazymaker

I just had an Ultimate Fighting Challenge cage match with a bona fide crazymaker. Here is how Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way) describes crazymakers: They are storm centres. They break deals and destroy schedules. They expect special treatment. They spend your time and your money. They discount your reality. They are expert blamers. They set people up against each other. They hate order. They do all these things...and then they deny it.

This reads like a checklist for what just happened.

I did not write yesterday. For the first time in this 30-day experiment. Which is exactly what crazymakers do. They draw you into drama and keep you from your creative work. They make you feel like a terrible person who ruined Christmas. You spend more time grappling with your own mind and ego about who is right/wrong/good/bad than you do working or enjoying your own life.

It is an impossible situation and a colossal waste of time and energy. There can be no winner. Unless you consider sweeping up the shattered rubble of your self-esteem a good time.

So the only thing to do is stay grounded in yourself and let the crazymaker go make crazy someplace else. Even if it means living with the label of Meanest Person On The Planet for the rest of your life. Perhaps I'll get myself a t-shirt made. A tight, shiny one. With tassels.

Incidentally, I did NOT stay grounded. I broke into little pieces and bawled for two days straight. And then I decided to move to Dubai. After I was finished with that, I had a long, hot shower and did a guided meditation on loving-kindness. Then, someone came to test drive my car (which represents six more months of living as an artist) and now I'm sitting down to work.

Now that I've stopped crying I can look back on the past two days and see that the madness was all self-induced. Why? Because I let myself get hooked in. I didn't have to accept the crazymaker's invitation to chaos, but I did. I let it affect me and my work. I let it shatter my self-esteem and make me forget all the good things I am and do.

But the strange positive in all this is, because I ruined Christmas (maybe that's what my t-shirt should say), the crazymaker has left town, leaving me the time and space to do my work. I may be the Meanie of the Year, but I might actually have a peaceful holiday. Life, as I like to say, is a series of trade-offs.