It’s been difficult to know what to write here recently, and so it transpires that I haven’t written. There has been too much of everything going on. Too much grief, too many tears, too much battling with one’s own demons, too many realisations about just how cruel we can be to ourselves. I’m not sure how much I want to say about it all here, but to leave it all unsaid fails to acknowledge just how damn hard the last month has been.
My grandmother passed away at the end of May. She was my last living grandparent. That generation has passed, in my family at least. I wouldn’t want to call her death a tragedy, because she was 91 and had lived a long and happy life…but even when it’s not a tragedy, it somehow is.
Concurrently with this, I’ve been suffering from a work crisis. I’ve posted once or twice on this blog before about work-related issues, and I may say more, but suffice to say that it got so bad I landed myself (voluntarily) into counselling. It’s helping, but it’s shown me a great deal about just how screwed up some of my ideas about work are. I blame the PhD, mostly. I have a lot to process and ponder here, and it hasn’t been easy.
It’s often felt, in the last few months, that if I didn’t have something cheery to talk about on the blog, there was no point posting. After all, no one wants to read about my woes, do they? Maybe I’ll say more, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll start to find happier topics to dwell on (that would make a nice change) and post those.
What I do have, right now, is a new project. My brother and his wife are expecting their first child at the end of July. It’s the first baby in our immediate family, and although it emphasises the passing on of the generations and how we are no longer just children and grandchildren, but now parents and aunts, it’s exciting to be welcoming this new life and this new chapter in our family’s history.
This is a Puerperium cardigan (in need of blocking and ends weaving in) and an Aston hat for my soon-to-arrive nephew, both patterns I really enjoyed knitting (especially the hat – that little knot of i-cord is too cute).
I’m also working on a blanket, using Rowan Pima Cotton. With just a couple of weeks to go, I’m not loving my chances of finishing this in time, but I live in hope.
Knits for a baby. After the month I’ve had, it seems, somehow, fitting.
The cardigan and hat are lovely. Hang in there!