“In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.”  Virginia Woolf

Sara tells us that in 1928, Virginia Woolf taught that women, in order to create, need privacy, peace, and personal incomes.  Sara’s chapter today has so many aha tidbits for me.

Five years ago, my husband blessed me with the opportunity to quit my office job and stay at home full time to create – to write, to play and record music, to paint.  There was just one problem:  I never seemed able to take full advantage of it.  It seemed no sooner was I home full time, then I was plagued with one health issue after another, and I never found my way to making my dreams a reality.  Eventually I went back to work.

Since that time, Danny has created an art studio for me.  A bedroom in our home was transformed into a place of my own where I could create art and jewelry, paint, write … anything my heart desires.  With my own space and a door to shut out the world, I have finally found my ability to focus and be creative as I had once dreamed of doing.

I was never able to explain why I found it difficult to take advantage of the opportunity when I had it in 2010, but after reading Sara’s chapter today, it all makes perfect sense.  I didn’t have that space of my own that I needed.  I wasn’t able to close myself off and be left alone to create.  I went from being an independent, single woman earning a good living to being a wife who had no individual space carved out for herself, and experienced a serious loss of identity.

I can see now why things happened the way that they did (or didn’t), and it is a relief to know that, should I make a decision to stay home again in the future, things will be much different.  I am different.  I have grown.  I have learned that I have an identity outside of a business career.  I have learned about resistance and the need to just put my ass in the chair.  And I have a nook of my own.