That was the first ever photo I posted to my instagram account @yarnlab. Way back in March of 2015.
And this is the first ever photo I posted to my new one, @sara_yarnlab, February of 2024.
In an instant today I lost almost a decade to the interwebs.
There is so much time between those two photos, so much life lived, tears cried and joys shared. So many stitches knit, and ripped and woven and torn.
And yet I don't think I'm much different than I was then. Maybe I can achieve what I am setting out to this time.
That first photo is of some yarn, recycled from a sweater and dyed on my stovetop, with food colouring. I had these grand plans to sell recycled and redyed yarn at markets, and I even managed to do so a couple of times.
Here's a photo I took just a month earlier.
I had just come back from a trip to Hawaii, for the Wanderlust Yoga retreat (festival?) where I had discovered something about myself. I really wanted my life to be a more creative pursuit.
I was desperately unhappy at grad school, with anxiety attacks and depression and who knows what. I was taking some much needed me time, and all I wanted to do was create and plan a life after my doctorate where I could spend my time being creative.
I was on a beach in paradise and spinning yarn on a drop spindle and in bliss. I can still look at that picture and feel it. Deeply.
But I had to finish my degree first, or I would hate myself for giving up.
And then months later we found out we were pregnant with the twins.
And we spend the next 7 or so years on that treadmill, speed turned up to max, running to keep up.
And just as things started to settle, around November 2022, I began to think again about my goals and what I wanted. I focused on a mantra of 'if not now, then when'.
