Getting My Shit Together

It’s an understatement to say the last 1100+ days has upset the natural order of things. It has destroyed my sense of security, destroyed my focus, and destroyed what little community I had. 

I no longer linger in NYC after medical appointments, so that means no more trips to Annie & Co. or Knitty City (may Pearl Chin’s memory be a blessing). 

School Products closed their show room, so no more trips there & no more great conversations or impromptu hairpin lace lessons from Berta. 

And now mayor Adams is demanding that COVID cautious folk remove their masks before entering stores as an attempt to quell robberies, robberies which their top of the line facial recognition software has failed to elicit a good ROI with an abundance of arrests—quite the contrary. 

Anyway. I was perusing my blog posts from the last (holy shit has it been THAT long?) 17 years, and while I am personally amazed at the volume & variety of my past projects, I am also hit with the sobering realization that with very few exceptions, all those gifts went to people of whom I am no longer friends. 

Change is the nature of life, I suppose, and I have been grieving the loss of it all, especially my weekly “sit and knit” with friends. 

Initially it was a big organized Yahoo group, which then was a Meet Up group, which then fractured when the co-moderator moved what was then a White Plains group to a Yonkers group without discussion—which eventually imploded or disbanded, leaving a couple stragglers to remain in White Plains. Then the group lost one more member. The remaining 3 of us continued to meet up, albeit less frequently, and had some great outings to Loop of the Loom in NYC for a Zen weaving workshop and Stitches East in Hartford, and a couple trips to NY Sheep & Wool before everything just shit the bed due to COVID causing a logistical nightmare. 

*Sigh*

So I am poised to travel for the first time in 3 years, and do so reluctantly with an abundance of cognitive dissonance. 

Trying to get in the right headspace for it. I have a project I plan on packing & hope I have the mental focus for it. I haven’t gotten to the point of sussing out a local yarn store where I will be, partially because I am not mentally there yet, partially because I really don’t need more yarn, and partially because I have been trying to do Swedish Death Cleaning and rid myself of stuff I don’t need anymore or don’t use. 

I miss the life, lifestyle & friends I once had. I’m surviving, but wish I were thriving, but surviving has not been a small accomplishment, so I have to be satisfied with that for now.