Neatly Tangled

That’s the closest I can come, metaphor-wise, to what’s happened with the designing lately, and the knitting in general, and the blog. It’s all starting to sound like excuses to me at this point; I need to just write.

I had a big thoughtful post all planned about the mental traffic jam that’s been holding me up, and inspiration v work, and a whole lot of other nonsense, and it’s all fled from me. I think my biggest mental block is that at some point I stopped thinking of myself as a designer and started thinking of myself as someone who used to design, back when life allowed me to.

I’m calling bullshit on myself for that one.

There are really for real things that I’m struggling with right now…my health’s still lousy, and I just changed jobs again, and I have three very active kids and an ex and a current partner who has his own family problems and I feel like I’m stretched so thin you ought to be able to see right through me. I’m still not all that good at working in the 10 or 15 minute spaces that are all I can seem to create some days, and I’m great at letting myself get crowded back out of the longer spaces I try to create, and I wonder sometimes how much I want to do this, given how damned hard it is for me to manage everything I’ve already got on my plate.

But every time I come back to it and ask myself that question, the answer is desperately. I can’t think of a damned thing I’d rather do. I love it, love working out the stitches and discovering how a yarn behaves and watching something brand new take shape under my hands. I love the way it feels to concentrate completely, and I love knowing that other people enjoy the results of my work. It’s insanely rewarding for me on so many levels.

Sometimes I step back and I think to myself, it’s only crochet, it’s only knitting, what does it matter?. But you know what? It matters. It matters to a hell of a lot of people, and it matters to me, too. It’s beautiful and practical and it brings us joy. And that joy carries meaning, even if it’s something as simple as bringing a smile to my face when I wash my dishes.

I have an odd feeling that I’ll be up earlier than otherwise in the morning. I think I have a swatch that needs my attention.

Been a rough week.

I somehow picked up a stomach thing that wasted almost three days for me. I had crazy work and a visit with the neurologist and the battle to get my almost-3-year-old to consider…just consider…wearing underwear. Shopping for school clothes for my about-to-start-kindergarten girl, shopping for groceries since I got paid, a tiny bit of actual housekeeping, and tired, tired, tired.

Must be August.

Actually did make a small bit of progress, now that I think of it, in getting a hank of wool into a ball and working a few rows on the current design project. Not where I hoped to be, but what can you do?

Life is life.

Partially because I’m working on a new design and it’s a largish item and I’m part-way through the initial run-through, which is taking plenty of my time just now.

Partially because my partner and I are giving in to our momentary obsession with Beatles Rock Band. Over the last two nights we’ve picked up the achievements for playing the entire story within 24 hours and five-starring every song in the story. Granted to do the latter we set our difficulty down to easy for the nastier bits, but still.

Partially because work is eating a tremendous amount of energy right now. The bigwigs keep coming to visit and the place is in a panic. Again. And again. And again. Not so much fun.

Partially because I’m struggling with health problems right now. I go back to see the neurologist next week. I just realized that whatever is causing my other symptoms is also most likely causing the incredible tiredness I’ve been fighting, which waxes and wanes along with the rest. Hopefully this time we’ll manage to figure out what’s going on. Huge round of testing starting a year and a half ago didn’t lead us anywhere, so I’ve been avoiding going back, but I don’t think I can merrily ignore this any longer. :-/

More soon.