Wrestling with Decisions

 

I spend a fair bit of time wrestling with decisions, of one sort or another.  Once I have thought things through, I then make a plan and march forward.

Turns out, Life frequently has Other Plans.

Over the winter I wrestle with deciding what I should do for the coming year, winter being the usual time I think about the future.

Having lived a reasonably long life, I have realities that I must face and deal with - like a body that is slowly breaking down.

But I also still have dreams - things I want to do, things I want to make, things I want to promote.  And so on.

What I am wrestling with now is the reality of this breaking down body and what I might actually, physically, be able to do over the coming months and - hopefully - years.

Reality bites, as they say.

I had really hoped (really hard) that the last injection (one week ago now) would bring me back to a more functional body.  A less pain filled body.  But the injections are not a guarantee, and so it appears to not be - so far, at least.  Plus eventually even the temporary relief the injections provide will stop being any kind of effective.  However, it is less than before and I am able to function without the heavy duty pain killers and that alone is worth the trip to Vancouver to get the jab.

My course forward is to delay the deterioration as much as possible.  But my desire to prevent further degradation of my damaged disc and my desire to Get Stuff Done are at odds with each other.

In many ways the only reason I am still able to weave is because I spent so many years weaving ergonomically.

So when I see yet another photo online of someone weaving on a loom, sitting too low (no it really is NOT a good idea to sit on an ordinary chair at a loom), elbows below the breast beam, shoulders hunched, back curved...well, I wince.

It may not hurt today.  It may not hurt tomorrow.  But if someone does that long enough it *will* hurt.

But people will do as they please and I no longer comment or offer any kind of suggestions randomly to people I don't know (even sometimes to people I *do* know) because these days 'you do you' seems to be the guiding principle of personal interaction.  Even when I *know* that person is going to be hurting - if not today, soon enough.  Sometimes, people just do not want to know.  They may already have ingrained habits that will create discomfort if they try to change.  So they donwanna hear about doing anything differently.  More ergonomically.

In the meantime, I continue to wrestle with what the future holds for me.  I had thought that getting these shots would make it possible to continue teaching remotely, but now?  Now I'm not so sure.

So what is left?

Well, writing.  Writing can be done at my own pace, when I'm feeling 'better' and the brain fog isn't too great.  I can ask others to proof read and make sure that what I am saying makes any kind of sense.

So I'm going to talk to a friend today about various options (she may be blindsided by this, but she's pretty helpful and supportive) and explore some things that I might be able to do - with technology and potentially with writing.

Because I've already self-published two books.  After declaring that I was written out, there was no 3rd book in me, I find that perhaps there might be.  A very niche book for a niche market, truth be told, but if I self-publish I can invest what I need to invest and publish online like I did for The Intentional Weaver and the costs are pretty minimal.

In the meantime, it may take another full week for the jab to take full effect, so I will try to keep my hope alive that better days may yet be in the offing.  And if not, well, I'm an introvert so I can pretty much keep my own company and if I need personal interaction, I have a couple of local friends I can visit with and blow off some steam.

Tomorrow I have an all day (pretty much) Zoom appointment with the weavers of St. Louis, MO.  And then it will be back to the loom.  Looks like four more towels to weave on the current warp, then get #3 into the loom.  Yesterday I wrestled #4 into shape and while it didn't go where I was expecting it to go, and I wasn't sure at first if I liked it because it was so very different from what I had been planning or expecting, I decided that it was just one warp in a series and the towels will still dry dishes.

So I think I will keep that draft, too.

Then a week Saturday I have 3 beginning weaving students to indoctrinate - er, teach.  And I WILL be monitoring their posture and position at the loom and try to keep them from hurting their bodies.