Wednesday 14 February 2024

Back to the start, or maybe come full circle, or who knows what

 


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. 

(grad school me)

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'.


Look at me, smiling and out running and wearing wool and motivated AF.

And then Bam, kick me in my soul why don't you. I got f*ing cancer!

Yet I still produced videos and knitting and goodness. I met the YouTube goals (more on those later) that I set for 2023, I chugged along, motivated and strengthened by what I wanted. By the end goal. 

And just like on that beach with that spindle, I can see what I want and dang it I'm going after it. 

And did this post make any sense at all? Maybe not to you, but to me it did. 

(Some singles waiting to be plied)

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