Just Cast On

There have been a lot of thought provoking posts out in knit blog land lately. It seems to be a thoughtful & reflective time of year, with the darkening of the days. That plus yesterday's news had me thinking of many things on my way home last night. I ran into writer's block when trying to type my thoughts out yesterday evening, however, & ended up just working on my black shawl & watching science shows on the National Geographic channel instead.

Life for most of us in the computer literate world does start out "bright and shiny." When I look at my high school graduation picture, I was so, SO much skinnier than I ever felt I was at the time. There was a whole realm of possibility stretching out before me, & I would never have foreseen ending up where I have now, over two decades later. I'm sure that some of my teachers (& maybe my parents) thought that I was headed for a glorious career in advanced mathematics or physics. I certainly had the test scores & the nerdy disposition for that. (But the reality of my life is that those test scores are only good to get me into Mensa, & I haven't even bothered to do that, since I'd have to either find those test results or come up with some way to get another copy. Not happening right now.) Instead I'm on the "Mommy Track" at work, with no plans to do anything else about it until my kids are grown, at least.

Life changes according to the choices we make, & the endless possibilities that stretch out before us in our teens simply cannot ALL come to be. The 1980's supermom myth is just that, a myth. The trick is not to have it ALL. The trick to life is to have enough of what makes you happy, however you manage to fit that happiness into your life. There are certainly things in my life that I wouldn't mind changing, but there are other things that I wouldn't change for all the money or prestige in the world.

I've recently gotten into listening to podcasts, & was listening to this one earlier this week. It occurred to me that life is like a wonderful big-project's-worth of yarn. A teenager starts out with certain talents & characteristics, when trying to figure out what to do with life, & a knitter starts out with yarn that has certain characteristics when trying to figure out which project to chose. Those characteristics effect the possible choices for what to do with ones life or ones yarn, but even if the first choice doesn't turn out the way that one hoped, it is possible to rip back, re-evaluate, & make a different choice for how to procede from there. In fact, pausing to check the status every once in a while is a good thing. When knitting lace, for example, pausing to see if the pattern is appearing as it should will catch a missing YO early enough to do something about it. Periodically evaluating one's life every once in a while is a good thing also. Maybe instead of one huge sweater out of that wonderful big-project's-worth of yarn, a person might decide to make several, varied items -- a vest, a hat, a felted bag. (Felting is a good representation of the stresses of life, come to think of it.)

If you try to make the yarn into something that doesn't fit its characteristics, sometimes frogging becomes the only sensible option. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't cast on anyway, & experiment & take risks. It's never too late to re-evaluate & do something different instead, though more pain is involved the further along you are into the project. (Or life, sometimes.)

Just sitting by & not making any choices won't preserve those choices in life the same way that it does with yarn. If yarn is stored well, it usually doesn't hurt to wait a while before using that part of your stash. In life it is harder to preserve those options, because life will happen no matter what you chose. "If you chose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

But sometimes life sneaks up & takes all the options away. I will never forget visiting this ship & seeing my own name among those on the wall. I'm sure the young Marine entombed there had a different first & middle name from mine, but it made me wonder where he was from, & whether he was related to my father's family. (Not too likely, it's a common name, but I wonder anyway...) He had to have been very young, given the rank that was listed on the wall.

I thought of him yesterday, & of the father in Oregon, & the local weather related deaths here in the midwest. I sit here today appreciating that I still have a life where I can make choices. I appreciate the choices that got me here, even though not all of it was enjoyable to live through at the time.