Preface: Good Things Take Time

I knit my long afternoon away To calm the troubled waters To fill the hole in my heart And find home within To rest in the arms of gentle wind Where I hear his whispers Your daughter, Yoshie ☾

Seasons change and so do we. This summer, I moved into my new home and after discarding and donating roughly 20 large boxes and most of the furniture, I was left with just the minimum of essentials. These necessities included 5 large bins of yarn.

This decluttering has had a yin and yang to it. I do feel it has removed my heavy burdens, but I've also been feeling empty and vulnerable as if my shadow self has finally facing up the sunshine for the first time in a long while. Once the light has started shining in, I've come face to face with my obvious truth, the habitual pattern that I've repeated.

For as long as I can remember, I've micromanaged my day with a to-do list. Crossing tasks off my list feels good as my brain releases the pleasure hormone dopamine. However what started as an effective tool that was supposed to unburden my brain has become a form of control, leaving less and less room for spontaneity. Yet chasing the sense of orderliness works just like a dangling carrot before the hungry horse. The carrot always remained just out of reach.

If you keep finding yourself being a lifeless couch potato at the end of the day, you must wonder what, then, is the point of living? After such major decluttering, I have come to identify my anxious mind as the culprit of all my overdoing and subsequent burnouts. I am in the process of restoring my inner balance and tranquility. This is an uncomfortable stage to be in where the old ground is dying down, but the new ground is not fully emerged yet.

What has helping me cruise through this time? My beloved yarn and needles! As I've done before in the past, especially when my life has forced me to pause, I've been knitting my time away. When a tsunami of emotions has risen and gone through me, knitting has serving as supplemental oxygen to my troubled heart and carrying me through and through.

With this new space of mine, both internally and externally, after several years of knitting and crocheting solely as my hobby, I've begun preparing to share my work publicly again. My thinking mind has finally yielded to my feeling heart, letting the heart take the helm. This is a good place to create, and simultaneously fill my empty vessel.