Mental Health Day

 

Winter has arrived.  At last.  We got a bit of snow yesterday - not a huge amount, but enough to make driving a challenge.  Now we wait for that cold front hanging over our heads (so to speak) waiting for the temps to plummet.  

I had a really 'bad' night last night.  I finally managed to accumulate about 4 hours of sleep, but I'm still reeling from the pain and sleep deprivation.

Today I got another SI joint injection, but so far nothing seems to be drastically 'better'.  Of course it does take some time to work its magic.

Then when I got home I twisted my ankle.  Good thing I had already scheduled 'light duties'.  It isn't a bad twist, just really annoying.  Adding insult to injury, that I can't take my boots off without causing myself an injury.

I have no more appointments outside of the house until next week.  I have a list of 'light duty' tasks, but I just...donwanna.

So I am sitting in the office ignoring the pile of paper on my desk that needs to be dealt with.  

The most important and time sensitive task is sifting through photos for the new book.

This is being billed as a 'memoir'.  I wanted to talk about being in the business of being a self-employed weaver in the 20th and 21st centuries - an anachronistic profession at the time I chose to do it.  I had intended to write a 'how to earn an income from weaving' book, but realized that barely anything I did then is pertinent to this time of social media and internet.  The path I took no longer exists and people will have to find their own way to meeting their business goals.

OTOH, there are lessons to be learned, and as a human being, I am quite sure that my lessons are not unique to me.  So rather than a how-to, I decided once again to tell my stories.

I have never talked much publicly about being in the business of textiles.  When I was a kid, my mother always insisted that we never 'share our dirty laundry'.  So we never talked about the fact that we were poor and struggled to make ends meet.  Or that we had challenges, like depression, to deal with.  During my childhood, people didn't even talk about being sick with cancer - instead there were whispered comments about the C word.  As if cancer were contagious, or a character fault.

Being a woman in a 'women's' field, there was the struggle to get paid, never mind a 'decent' amount - just paid.  We were supposed to 'share' everything.

I had to learn to set boundaries, and doing that is never easy.  And there are people who will not react well when you do.

For a while I hesitated to even share those lessons, but then I realized that perhaps they were a lot more valuable than me describing how I entered the craft fair circuit, did marketing the way it was done in the 1980s and 90s.  Because none of that is truly pertinent in the 2020s.  But learning how to deal with impostor syndrome and burnout?  That is still an issue for many.

I think it's good that we are able to talk about such things more openly now.  There were a few people who began to speak out, and because they were, I felt empowered to now share my stories.

Even so, the 'market' for my stories is limited; even more so for stories about what it was like to deal with being in business.  So this book will be pdf only.  Probably via my ko-fi shop, because they will allow digital products.  And they don't take a cut of every sale, so I don't have to price this book to cover those fees, just the Paypal fees.  That means I can charge less.  Because I am fully aware that anyone who is trying to earn their income from being in the textile business doesn't have a lot of spare change laying around.

OTOH, the lessons I learned are valuable.  Even if the reader realizes that they don't want to do *that*.  And if I am going to model being in business, then I have to value my information, not just give it away because I'm supposed to 'share' everything I know for free.  That doesn't pay the bills.  And I do have bills - from internet costs, to computer upgrades, printer ink, just keeping the lights on and the furnace running.  Society expects people to generate an income.  Yes, even people in anachronistic professions.

Shall I share the title?  I'm calling it A Thread Runs Through It; a memoir.  Because I am talking about a part of my life that consumed me from waking to sleeping - and truth to tell, nights as well because I dreamt about things, too.  It also follows along with other of my public writings - like this blog - Weaving a Life.  

It was interesting on a personal level to actually stop and think about what I have done over the past, what, nearly 50 years.  It was the work that was never seen by others, but without it, none of what the public saw would have, could have, existed.  As part of the book, I did a chronology.  By the time I finished it (and no, I did not include *everything* I ever did, far from it), I sat back and thought about my life.  "No wonder I'm so exhausted.  No wonder I am in so much pain."  And yet.  And yet.  I would not go back and chose a different path.

And I thought of my mother, who had an incredibly difficult life, what with one thing and another.  The last five years of her life had been beset with health issues and had not been a lot of fun, frankly.  When the doctor told her they had already sent in a referral to hospice for her because they could take better care of her there, she looked solemn, absorbing what he was saying.  How long, she wanted to know.  Up to six weeks, maybe.  She shuddered and said that she hoped not.  

Then she looked at me and said, "Well, I'm 90 years old.  85 of those years were good."

I was shocked to hear her say that, given everything she had endured, but I find myself reaching the same conclusion.

I look back.  I see the path clearly now, when while I was walking it I had no idea where it would lead.

I have some regrets but they are mostly things I did not do, not the things that I did do.

And ultimately, if anyone else can learn from the things I learned along the way?  Bonus.

As for the rest of *this* day?  I think it will be a mental health day.  Let the injection do what it can to help me function.  Let my ankle rest and begin to heal.  Let my brain stop scrambling, trying to do all the things that need doing on my task list.

Today is a Snow Day.  A Mental Health Day.  And I have a new jigsaw puzzle to build and a book to read.  And I may feel inclined to toss those 14 towels ready for wet finishing into the washer and dryer so I can press them tomorrow.

Light duties might be 'light', but they still need to be done.