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| It's a tiny, knitted Felix! |
Last Tuesday, I took a 1 ½ hour free beginner knitting class after work with one of my co-workers and suddenly knitting is all I can think about. Part two to the beginner class is today and I can’t wait! I’m picturing cozy sweaters, luxurious blankets, funky socks, warm hats and mittens, cool fingerless gloves, retro leg warmers…all knitted. Everything knitted, all the time. Everyone I know is getting something knitted for Christmas this year and every year. It’ll be fantastic!
That was written last Thursday. In Thursday's class, we learned the Pearl stitch. I now know I hate the Pearl stitch. However, I continue to practice while I drop and split stitches all over my so-called scarf. In October, there is a 4 part class for sock knitting. I'm all in now.
Dear readers, I must confess....before this class I had no interest in knitting. It's not that I was "not interested" in knitting...it's just that I was not "interested". I didn't see knitting ever being my thing. But at my workplace, the new CEO has been trying to breathe some life into the "culture". People have been "empowered" to mingle, start things up and get others involved....that kind of thing. So some nice person decided to donate their skills and knowledge and offer free knitting classes. Signs were put up. Emails were sent out. *Crickets* No one wanted to learn to knit. So I signed up. Sure, why not? What do I have to lose.
In the first class, we went around (to all two of us) and talked about why we were there, our experience with knitting, etc. The last time I knitted was when I was a Brownie. I did it for some badge, couldn't remember which one. Susan, the woman teaching the class, said, "Could that have been the knitting badge?" She tried really hard to say it sincerely and without sarcasm. That class was the first time we had really ever spoken and I decided I liked her right there. I had forgotten there was a knitting badge but that really explains why I ever learned to knit...I was forced to if I wanted the badge and I'm sure I wanted ALL the badges so I had no choice.
Then Susan showed us all her cool knitting gear. I'm sure many of you, like me, thought knitting gear was limited to 2 long, dirty plastic pink needles that were passed down along with 5 old balls of yarn that were found in your grandmother's attic. But that is not the case! Susan has all kinds of exotic, mixed wood needles in various sizes in beautiful cases, a tool kit filled with wicked devices I want to own, not to mention balls of gorgeous angora and wool. The Pearl stitch may have ended my short lived knitting obsession if not for Susan's patience in showing me once, twice, four times, many many times in the two hour class. I'm willing to conquer the Pearl stitch so I too can have a decked out knitting kit like she has.
I get these weird obsessions ALL the time. I have ever since I was a kid. I’ll hear a song on the radio and suddenly something in my head clicks and I’ll have to play it over and over again. I’ll read a book and love it so much that I have to read it again immediately after I finish it…..and nothing can stop me from than doing just that right now. I’ll make something for dinner, and again…the clicking in my head, "OMG this is so good (if I do say so myself)", and I’ll make the same thing for dinner every day for a week ‘cos I loved it so much. I’ll find something I like to wear and decide I want to wear it every day, forever - so I buy 10 of the same thing and wear them all until they fall apart and I start looking like a homeless person.
What I always find amusing is: the things I become obsessed with are the things that become my favourites. I never get sick of them. (This is so unlike me because I love variety and usually get bored with and discard things very quickly.) Unless of course I am obsessed with how much I dislike a thing….then it never becomes my fave. Like the book “Heart of Darkness”. I am obsessed with how much I hate that book. It’s been 25 years since I read it and even now, there are a great many unpleasant things I would rather do than read it ever, ever again. Don’t take my word for it….Forget about Martin Sheen, read it yourself and you’ll see what I mean.
So, my obsessions are many. Knitting came along at a great time for me. I’m struggling to think about anything other than Felix. But there is a team of people who are waiting for me to “get with the program”…the weight loss surgery program, that is. I need to really embrace the new way I will have to eat and live after I have my sleeve surgery in order to be successful. I need to start showing results from the 8 months of talk therapy and nutritional counseling I have been getting. I need to start being able to justify the time away from work for all of these things with actions. I still hadn’t really found that thing that would replace obsessive/compulsive eating for me. The thing I turn to automatically when I am stressed or happy or bored. The thing I do without thinking that comforts me and reassures me.
Knitting could be that thing for me. It keeps my hands and mind busy and active. It helps me focus. It's a creative act that results in something beautiful (one can hope that someday I will indeed create something beautiful!). The act of knotting fabric over and over again comforts and reassures me. It also helps me think differently about food and the weight loss journey I am on by providing me with some relief. It gives me time to think without being preoccupied by food. It helps me build my confidence by showing me that yes, I can actually succeed at something. Knitting therapy. I highly recommend it.
The other day while I was knitting, it occurred to me that the word "loss" is not a real positive word and yet I - and every other person going through the same experience - use it all the time to describe the process of having gastric sleeve/gastric by pass/lap band surgery, getting fit and healthy. It's our "weight loss journey".
But the word "loss" implies something is missing and you want it back. For example, Felix is lost...I hope to get him back. When someone dies, we say we "lost" a good one...meaning we can't get them back and we'll miss them. I do want to be healthier and thinner...but I certainly won't miss that weight once it's gone. I won't want it back and I doubt I will mourn the loss of it.
2007 was the year I learned was loss was about. All in one month, a meaningful relationship ended, my grandmother died after a short illness, my cat died suddenly, and my aunt died after a 5 year battle with Inflammatory Breast Cancer. That was a journey of loss. It was all a shock to my system, not in a positive way. No thanks, don't wanna go through a journey of loss again unless I have to.
I also don't like thinking of the losing of the weight as a "journey". This experience does not exist in a bubble. It's a part of my life. There's no beginning and no end to it. Life is itself the journey and this is just one experience in that journey.
So what's important about the surgery? The decrease in my body mass is certainly the tangible result I'm looking for. But more importantly, it's the emotional growth the experience of being obese, coming to terms with it and letting it go has given me. I'm quite sure I would be a different person if I had never been obese. The development of healthy living skills is what's important. The investment in myself. The result I'm looking for from surgery is to be a happier, more well rounded, healthier person. To be a better role model for my lovely nieces.
Today in my talk therapy session, Jessica, my therapist and I, talked a lot about the Wise mind. The Wise mind is where the Emotional mind and the Reasonable mind overlap. The idea is that a balanced, healthy mind involves both emotions and reason. Seems simple enough. This has become the main crux of my talk therapy. How to call upon the Wise mind when the Emotional mind takes over. And that is a tough thing when you have allowed your emotions to run your life as I have. Sure, the Reasonable mind makes an appearance now and then but I have always been extremely impulsive.
Jessica and I have talked about the Wise mind several times but I have been having a really bad summer. I hadn't seen Jessica in over a month and it was clear today after I left her office how much she really does help me. I walked into her office a mess - upset about Felix, upset about my physical limitations, upset about work, upset about home life, upset about blowing off several important social events, missing appointments, calling in sick to work. I think I expected and wanted her to "there, there" me....tell me I was justified in skipping out on my responsibilities and it was all ok and clearly I am stressed beyond what any person can handle.
But she didn't. She listened without expression on her face and when I finished my pity party, she said, "what would the feminist ideal say about that?" And I got what she meant instantly. Being a strong woman, a feminist, is important to me. If there is an ideal I strive for, it isn't to be the skinniest, most beautiful, most popular person...it's to be the strongest woman I can be. I consider myself a feminist but I am weak right now and I want to be stronger. I strive to be my feminist ideal - independent, thriving, free thinking, smart, able to make decisions from a place of strength instead of weakness. Something about the Wise mind wasn't getting through to me until today. Now, I can visualize my Wise mind as the Feminist Ideal and use that when my Emotional mind takes over.
From now on, I will no longer refer to the process of having gastric sleeve surgery, getting fit and healthy as being a "weight loss journey". From now on, this journey shall be known as "Knitting to the Feminist Ideal". KFI. It's got a nice ring to it, right?
Some of my current and long standing obsessions:
· Music
·All things British
· Law and Order (and almost all crime/courtroom dramas)
· Serial killers
· Death
· Road trips - Nashville is my current road trip focus
· Books (not that I have been making time to read lately)
· Cognac, sherry and port (had Trentadue chocolate last week and I must buy a bottle!)
· Food (this summer has been Wegman's California Salad Rolls...yum!)
· Nigella Lawson
· Magazines
· Fashion
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