What happens when you have too many disjointed thoughts:
- The kids start school next week Wednesday and I think this is the first time I can say with 100% honesty that I wish summer were longer. It was so full of good things.
- I’m in a pruning stage. I think it has to do with being so tired of dealing with bullshit. I want to surround myself with people who are kind, honest, and/or interesting. I want to be reading (books, not status updates), engaging (in real life conversations over coffee and not twitter battles), and creating (more than just posts on instagram). I’m working on it.
- Jesse and I went to NYC for our 15th wedding anniversary. I adore that city and want to move there immediately. We saw Hamilton. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited for anything in my life. I almost passed out/threw up when the opening music swelled. I loved every single second.
- News about Harvey has just blown me away. Wanting to do something (even if it was just little), I sent diapers and put together a box of yarn from my stash. For non-knitters, I’m sure the yarn thing seems silly (maybe even for knitters), but I have plenty and can’t imagine being in a stressful situation like that without having a project to focus on and help me calm down.
- Speaking of knitting, I *finally* bought buttons for Violet’s sweater. They look like this. I haven’t gotten them on the sweater yet, but I’m getting there. I also picked up a set of these because they looked cute. I have no idea what I’m going to do with them. I’ve almost finished Abram’s sweater and I bought yarn (in black) and a pattern for mine.
- I spent an evening pricing underground bomb shelters. I’m lots of fun at parties right now.
- As illustrated by my list, I’m still bouncing like a maniacal rubber ball between gut wrenching fear for the world we are living in and brief glorious moments of oblivion. I can definitively say that it’s not a good time to be a deep thinker, worrier, news watcher. Maybe it never is?
How are you? It’s been a long time since I’ve heard from some of my internet pen pals. Hope to hear what you’re making, thinking, doing in your little corner of the world. XOXO.
Oh Kate. I’m so with you on all of this. I feel so disjointed I can barely settle to anything. Most days, most hours, I can feel my stomach churning with anxiety over, well, pretty much everything. And then there are moments when I feel such love it makes my heart ache almost unbearably. Maybe it’s just my age, maybe it’s the times we’re living in, but whatever it is, this deep thinker has never felt more like a pendulum, more stretched emotionally, than I do now.
The buttons for V’s sweater are beautiful! I wish I had thought of looking online for nicer ones for the baby sweater I knit; I just found some ok/nothing special ones at our one-and-only fabric store 🙁 .
“I almost passed out/threw up when the opening music swelled.” Oh, this! After what feels like years of self-imposed silence (babies crying/children talking/teenagers shouting + music = sensory overload) I’m turning back to music as a tool to quiet my churning thoughts. It’s been Coldplay for weeks now, with no end in sight…
Our summer … we’ve stayed put and done lots of things locally — biking, going to the beach, etc. Come next week, my 12-year-old will have nothing exciting to write about if there’s an obligatory “what I did this summer” essay. My daughter and her boyfriend, and my older son and his girlfriend, came home a few times this summer. Talk about stretched and heart-aching (in a good way) emotions, watching your own children in love…
Pruning is a word that fits me right now, too. I’m feeling very on the edge of … something … as though if I don’t act now, take chances, I never will. I’m doing a major purge, digging deep and tackling sentimental stuff that I’ve been keeping with the idea that I would “one day” make something (baby clothes into a quilt, children’s artwork into a larger displayable piece, for example). I’m realizing all my churning thoughts and half-baked plans for these “someday” projects are weighing me down and have been a crutch for me to avoid actual progress towards becoming what I’d like to be when my kids have all left home.
On a positive note, I’ve been exercising (walking very very briskly on the treadmill for 60+ minutes) on a daily basis since May. (I’ve only missed ONE day!) I now find myself thinking, mid-afternoon or evening, “I get to exercise tomorrow morning!!!” My 18-year-old son tells me that’s the runner’s high, which is something I NEVER thought I would ever feel 🙂 !
Wishing you a Labour Day weekend that’s more up than down, Kate.
xo Marian
Oh Marian! I’m so grateful to hear that I’m not alone in my back and forth emotions! It feels like the right response to everything that is going on, and yet so many people seem *fine* as they go about their lives. Maybe to the outside observer I do too, but I feel anything but fine.
I’m sure your buttons were lovely as was the sweater you made. And more importantly, you finished it. I’ve been looking for MONTHS. Months that she could have been wearing it and instead is growing.
WOW!!! CONGRATS!!! On the exercise. I can’t imagine doing *anything* with that much dedication (except brushing my teeth. That is a required daily)!!
Please forgive any obvious misspellings/typos. I’m on my phone and it’s such a pain to type a response, but I wanted to get one out to you before the end of the weekend!! So good to hear from you! It sounds like you are tackling and doing some good things!!
Once again, bewildered by how I keep missing things. But I’ve been sprinting since we returned to school/work, which is right about the time you published this. So with you on the pruning and bullshit. I’m working on it, too. It’s not a good time for us, but when I look back over the arc of my life and the arc of history, I can see that no one (who lives any length of time) gets through unscathed. We’re overdue for this kind of time. My mother reminds me of how awful the 60s felt. She said that in the summer of ’68 she felt as if the world was ending. In a way, it was. It is now, too. Some things need to, though. I just keep reminding myself of that. I hope you are well, all these weeks later. Glad you finally found some buttons. 🙂
Yes, I had someone tell me recently that this time isn’t nearly as scary as the 60’s. I don’t know if I agree with her, but maybe it’s my age. The idea that there is nothing new under the sun can be comforting, and there really is a limit to what I can control, so worrying doesn’t do me any good.
I appreciate you stopping to leave a comment. Its always good to hear from you and I know you’re busy!!