With chronic illness and disability, loved ones often exit your life, as soon as they realise you are not going to get better. They are there for you when they think you’ll recover, but disappear the minute you don’t. There is a saying I like…
***chronic illness will show you two things very clearly – the amazing compassion of some people you hardly know at all, and the disgusting selfishness of some people you thought you knew very well. ***
It can get pretty isolated waiting at home waiting on services and equipment, that never seems to arrive, especially when a pandemic gets added to the equation. It gets a little monotonous talking to yourself after a while, so rather than going insane with boredom, depressed your friends have bailed, I decided to get creative. I turned to my huge stash of yarn. What once overwhelmed and embarrassed me, because my new best friend. I have lost contact with nearly all of my friends I had before I got unwell BUT have reconnected with this stash of goodness..and it’s not letting me down! It’s there for me every time I need some comfort.
I have spent most of my adult years knitting, latch hooking rugs, needlepoint cushion covers, even designing my own knitwear and fully outfitted dolls. The yarn has been there for me, no matter how I am feeling. It has been there for me in my darkest times. My greatest achievement was definitely, knitting for the WOW wearable art awards where I had a lot of success with my costumes.
Art makes me feel better. Since becoming isolated in my home, I have been able to reflect on just how much of my life was spent looking after other people’s wants, needs and problems and putting my own on hold. I told myself they were much more important than me. In reality, by focusing on other people, I guess I was saying I was not worthy of the same type of care. This is why I am excited to have made the connection.
I have no excuse to ignore my needs anymore. I can’t care for others like I used to. My health has told me it is time to spend time on someone else.…that person is ME. I see this as a wake-up call . I’m allowed to be selfish for a while. I’m going to design a space that is focused solely on what feeds my soul. A place where I can feel good about who I am every day.Where I can feel good about what I can still do, and surround myself with the things that I love. That for me is an art space, surrounded by lots of yarn.
I want to make my tiny house the hub, for all my creative endeavors, with a plan towards making money, doing what I love. In the past, I always blamed not starting my business, on a lack of space, a lack of money, a lack of time …but really if I’m honest, I ran from every opportunity that meant I might get successful. That voice in my head said ’ What if I fail? ‘ I have let this unfounded fear hold me back for most of my life. Even if I did… Everything happens for a reason and comes with a positive spin if you look deep enough. My deep dive brought me to this page and a new appreciation that my health is the catalyst for change, which is definitely my gift in disguise.
Big problems with tiny solutions. 