Too Much Writing Means Not Much Posting...I Guess

I didn't post on Sunday like I normally do because I spent all day writing this essay and frankly I was really done writing. That night I dreamed that I got a job at the yarn shop I used to work at (that tipped my life upside down, and not in a very pleasant way). I'm really glad I don't work there anymore, seeing it in my dream was bad enough. Anyway, enjoy my little paper on Knitting.

Startitis. It’s not a made-up disease; it’s a knitter’s ailment. No one quite knows what causes it. Some knitters get it on pay day, some get it on vacation, some get it when their lives are overwhelming, and some seem to get it completely at random.

Startitis is the overwhelming desire to start a new knitting project regardless of the number of projects currently on the needles. I, personally, tend to get it when I’m feeling overwhelmed. I know it seems counterintuitive to think that starting something new would make life less overwhelming, but it’s not just the starting, it’s having the end in sight, right from the beginning. And of course there is something about making a pretty thing out of nothing, or nearly nothing, that is just good for the soul. Making pretty things can pull you out of seemingly any rut you have gotten yourself into. Starting a new knitting project can make everything seem better.

Knitting in and of itself can be very therapeutic. The repetitive motion that it requires can help people work through trauma and stress. Studies have shown that knitting has a similar effect on the brain as repeating a mantra or prayer. But the real story lies deeper than that. It’s the act of creation that is important.

When you start a knitting project, you start with yarn and needles and sometimes a pattern. You have these three simple ingredients and with nothing but your wits and your skill you create something beautiful, hopeful, inspiring, practical, whimsical, new. This is the most simple and powerful magic.

Starting a project starts well before the yarn and needles are in your hands. First you have to decide what you will make. There are different ways to go about this. Sometimes there is a particular technique you want to use, for example you might be craving your cable needle, or you might feel the need to work with two colors, or maybe you just want something simple that requires almost no technique whatsoever. Other times you might really want to make a particular item. Even in the dog days of summer you might get a sudden craving to make a hat, or a pair of mittens. Sometimes it can feel like it’s not entirely up to you, sometimes it feels as though the project is picking you, rather than the other way around.

Last year I found myself making hat after hat. It had nothing to do with need (even in Minnesota a person can only use so many hats) and there wasn’t anyone in particular in my life who needed hats. I just needed to make hats. I think there are several explanations for this. First of all, hats are small, they are manageable projects, the end is in sight from the moment you begin. Second of all, the structure of a hat is, to me, very predictable, and when your life is feeling unpredictable it’s nice to have something constant in it. Third of all, and maybe most importantly, they afford a simple avenue for self-expression and creativity.

One of the great things about hats is that they can range from simple (as a new knitter my second project was a hat) to very complicated, requiring charts and graphs and unusual techniques. There are lots of decisions to be made before you even start a hat. What kind of brim would you like? (Ribbed? Rolled? Earflaps?) What kind of pattern would you like on the body of the hat itself? (Cables? Stripes? Fairisle? No pattern at all?) What kind of crown would you like? (pointed or flat?) What color(s)? How warm would you like it to be? (is it a summer hat? Or a winter hat?)

Despite the variety in hats, the underlying structure tends to be predictable. Generally you start at the brim and work your way up, eventually decreasing for the crown. This lends a sense of stability and familiarity, but leaves room for self-expression.

Self-expression is key for growth and self-discovery. There is no doubt that art can be very therapeutic, but sometimes making art can seem overwhelming to me, too much freedom. I get lost on the paper, my thoughts won’t come together, and I am left sitting with a crayon in my hand and a blank sheet of paper wondering where to even begin. With a knitting project I know where to begin; it’s a familiar path.

One of the nice things about hats as knitting projects is that they are manageable. They are a small enough project that I can think it through, start to finish all at once. When your life is in transition, when you are leaving your old life behind, and moving forward, into a new future which is open ended and unknown and maybe not as meticulously planned out as you are accustomed to, it’s nice to have something predictable and small, something you can see the beginning, middle and end of. When things seem unmanageable in my life (like they did so often last year) having something manageable, like a knitting project, is infinitely comforting.

Starting to Feel the Stress

Its midterms (two)week(s) here at the U of M. Between now and two weeks from now I have 3 papers due, a take home final to finish, and a test. Then I have a blissful week off, where all I have to do is a ton of reading that I am letting slide in order to get the rest of this crap done.

This week the stress of all this finally hit me. I declared a full on snow day on Monday (since the University thought we could all brave the snow after noon). I ditched group on Tuesday morning because I was too tired to think about driving to St. Paul and I went home early, skipping out of my Tuesday night class. I was overwhelmed. I came home in desperate need of a pep-talk, which I got from my lovely step mom and dad, who reassured me that we are all at the ends of our ropes, that everyone here is done with winter, even if its not done with us yet. And then I went on with my week, I went to all of my classes on Wednesday and on Thursday I went to class and then studied for a few hours before heading out to the opening of an art show called "Art and Eating Disorders: Building Community Awareness". It was put on by the Emily Program Foundation and featured art by clients from the Emily Program. It was a lovely event, but it was a small room full of people (not something my introverted self loved). And when I was done there (I stayed just long enough to say hello to a few friends I hadn't seen in a while and check out the art) I went to a concert. A friends band was in town from Scotland and I felt like I owed it to her and to myself to see some good music. By Friday I was exhausted again but I stayed at school until 9:30, just me and the cleaning crew, to attempt to catch up from all the time I had taken off the day before. I spent a few hours on Saturday and again today studying and trying to shape up some of these papers.

So here I sit, exhausted, feeling like I have barely made a dent in this huge pile of projects, and I am asking myself if I can do it. I am having serious doubts about my ability to get everything done that needs to get done. Its not that there aren't enough hours in the day, its that my brain can only work for so many of them. I only have so much time to think and figure before it just gives up on me. I keep pushing myself though, I reach the point where I think I ought to be done, and then I work for another ten minutes. I take a break, I come back and do it all again. I am working at full tilt. Still, I'm falling behind and the work I am managing to do is subpar.

I am exhausted. I just want someone to swoop in and make it all better. But I know from years of experience that that will never happen. Still, I'm not too worried. I know that I am smarter than I think I am and stronger than I feel. I know that at the end of the day I am doing my best, and that no matter what any professor says, my best is good enough.

Lonely on Sundays

Its Sunday night, so of course, I am lonely. I don't know why its just Sunday nights that this feeling comes over me. I suppose other people feel it on Friday nights, or Saturday nights, when all of their friends are out on dates or at parties or whatever. But me, introverted me, I get it on Sunday nights, when everyone is home, in bed early, preparing for the week. Maybe feeling lonely is my way of preparing for the week ahead.

All I know is that most Sunday nights I want to curl up with a good book and a cup of hot tea, or a few good episodes of West Wing. I have discovered over the last year or so that West Wing is what I want when I am lonely. I think its because the show is filled with witty people who are part of a team, they share something. I don't feel that anymore in my life. I very rarely walk out of a room and feel like I just shared something important with people I care about. I used to feel that way about group at the Emily Program, but lately I don't feel it even then. Its not that group has stopped being helpful, its still just as helpful as ever, just in a different way. Group is not where I am doing my growing right now. Group has become a place for maintaining, which is good. But it doesn't leave me feeling energized and connected like it used to.

The problem now is that the place where I am doing all my growing (namely school) is the place I don't feel connected, or energized most of the time. Most of the time school makes me feel exhausted and like I don't quite belong. It makes me feel like I must be missing something, like everyone seems to know something that I don't.

and of course...

Its winter. Still and always winter. We are in the midst of another blizzard, our second this season. As much as I would like to say I am a hardy Minnesotan and that we can handle anything, that doesn't mean it isn't trying, it doesn't mean that winter doesn't start to seem long and dark and oppressive after a few months. We had a lovely thaw this week, we even saw temperatures in the fifties, which was a much needed break. It was so nice to be able to walk to class without a jacket and without freezing. It was so nice to be able to feel all of my fingers and toes and to feel some fresh air on my skin and walk with my face upturned to the sky. It made all the difference in the world. Which makes this blizzard a double slap in the face. This is month 4 of snow banks 4 feet high. Its too much. Tonight I feel the weight of each of these snowflakes.

But for all that, tonight is just another one of those winter nights that we Minnesotans endure. Its one of the things that makes us hardy and strong.

...right?

These girls terrify me

When I was in high school there was a group of guys we called the 'white hats' they were called this because they all wore white baseball caps with various (and seemingly random) colleges on them. They all pretty much looked the same, and acted the same. My friends and I mostly took as little notice of them as we did of ants, they were only annoying when they were around, but even then you couldn't tell one from the other. They were fairly harmless I think, just kind of stupid and self involved.

I'm discovering now, that in college there is a female version of those boys. I don't know what to call them, but I know them when I see them and for some reason they drive me nuts! There is one here now, where I am studying and I can't help but watch her, she is fascinatingly boring. She reminds me of a girl I had class with last semester who also drove me to distraction for no apparent reason.

They all wear their hair in the purposefully-messy style. It involves 'throwing' your hair into a ponytail at the top of your head, then putting an elastic headband around your head so that the inch or so around your face looks smooth and out of the way, but everything after that looks bumpy and tousled. It drives me nuts! so much effort to look like you didn't put any effort into it at all. I think there are about 2 girls in the world who's hair really looks like that when she just tosses it up into a ponytail before leaving the house after an all-nighter. And I'm willing to bet that these girls saw that girl and thought "man, she even looks good when she doesn't have time to get all done up" then they started going out of their way to prove that they too could look good "with no effort", too. Its not just the way they do their hair, they put makeup on, again in that practiced-careless way, too.

And the expressions on their faces, its like looking at a mask, there is no joy apparent, there is no shame, just judgement, as though they have the right to just stare out at you. They look both bored and judgmental, haughty as though they don't care what you think of them, all the while they are carefully calculating what you are doing, constantly judging themselves and you to be better or worse.

I wonder who they think they are dressing down (as opposed to dressing up) for. Who are they trying to impress? who are they trying to snare? Do they really want the guys who want someone who looks just like everyone else? and why would they want that? who's life are they trying to live?

The overall effect is one that makes me mistrust them. They seem dangerous. Maybe thats why I can't look away.

You still breathing? Ok then, you're fine.

Not much to say this week. Not that nothing happened, I just don't have much to say about it.

I got a new computer, the weather warmed up, life seems much easier.

I feel like maybe I should have something to say about my week, but the truth is, I'm relaxed and content right now. I got a good start on a paper thats due this week, I have a plan for both of my papers that are due in a few weeks, I'm not worried about the quiz that I have coming up on Friday. I think I did alright on the test I had last week, the house is clean, its pay day, I have a warm cat on my lap. What could I possibly find to be worried about?

Don't answer that. I know there are a million things I could be worried about, but right now, I'm not, and I don't want to be. I have a few more hours left in this day of rest that I worked so hard for. I'm going to watch a little west wing, and after that I may or may not do a little reading for school.

I have been thinking about why this Sunday seems so much less stressful than last Sunday did. I decided the difference lies in the way I handled the things that were causing me stress this week. Last week I felt stuck and helpless. This week I got up and changed the things that were bothering me.

This point was really driven home for me on Thursday in Phonology class. Going to class on Thursday I was feeling overwhelmed and confused. I spent the first half of class trying not to cry and reminding myself to breathe. I felt like my professor was speaking another language and I was the only one who didn't understand it. Then he made my anxiety even worse by saying we were moving on to 'Feature Theory' and that this is where things got tricky and that if we could all just hang on through 'Feature Theory' we would be set. I'm not going to lie, I had a moment of despair, but I didn't get lost in it, and when he actually started getting into this mighty and terrifying Feature Theory I started to realize that this makes more sense to me than anything we had been doing all semester, and it became apparent why that was. We had moved on from sound-algebra to sound-geometry. Suddenly I saw the point to Phonology and I felt my feet on the ground again. I went from being overwhelmed to the point of tears, to feeling confident enough to volunteer to go up to the board...in front of the whole class!

I remembered a story my cousin told me about a yoga teacher he had had who would walk around class during particularly challenging poses and ask how people were doing. My cousin said it sounded like this: "How're you doing? oh, it burns? yeah? you still breathing? ok then, you're fine" I kept repeating variations on this theme in my head "oh yeah? you're uncomfortable? you still breathing? ok then, you're fine" "what's that? you're starting to feel overwhelmed? you still breathing? ok, then, you're alright" and sure enough, I was fine.

This week I just kept breathing, and before I knew it the disquieting, uncomfortable, stressful parts had passed, I had moved through them with some semblance of grace and things felt easier.

...plus it got above 32 degrees for the first time in over a month (and its going to stay that way all week!)

3 compliments in 3 minutes

This was a long week for me. It was mostly filled with goodness, but still, long is long. It was like the universe came together to make sure my week seemed longer than it was, but not quite long enough to make me give up anything.

First of all, there was the first paper I have had to write in 8 years. The paper itself was only 2 pages, but it felt like 20. Trying to remember what a hypothesis was supposed to look like and then how to sound smarter than I felt (or as my cousin Zach put it 'you just have to make it sound cool'. Best paper writing advice ever, by the way.) took a lot out of me. Not to mention it was due the day after my busiest day. (I know, I should have started it before the day before it was due, and I did, kind of. I mean, I had worked through the problem part of it, mostly...kind of)

Speaking of Wednesday, also known as 'Rachael's-crazy-busy-day', I accidentally called my professor 'Buddy', which embarrassed me to no end, but he apparently liked it. This is my Meteorology class, which I was expecting to hate. I'm not a big science person, or maybe I should say I haven't had the best luck with science classes. My experience has been that science classes existed solely to take interesting things, like how the universe works, and make them so boring you would rather eat rusty nails than have to listen to one more minute of it. But this class has turned out to be fantastic! This is the class of 100 that feels like 7, with the 3 professors from Wisconsin. Wednesday is lab day and between class and lab we have 15 minutes, which is just long enough to chat with my table mates a little and get sort of relaxed and out of the learning mood. So when my professor came over to give us our assignment, my mind was still in casual conversation mode and I instinctively said 'whats up buddy' before realizing that that could be completely inappropriate. He chuckled a little and moved on. I was mortally embarrassed and when he came back later to explain something to us he said 'ok, buddies, I want to show you something' and I apologized profusely, but he brushed it off and said it was fine.

Fast forward to Friday, back in class, I am worn out from paper writing (and all the stress that comes with it) and the lecture is ultra depressing. We were talking about global warming and climate change and the news was not good. My professor even stopped in the middle of the lecture to say 'man, i'm just being a Debbie Downer today aren't I?' needless to say by the end of it I was really feeling done with class and just wanted to get out of there. We had one last activity before we were free though, in our groups we were given a statement that someone in the general public might say about global warming such as 'its too big of a problem for me to do anything about' and we were supposed to come up with arguments against it. I was tired and easily confused at that point and found myself listening to my table-mates discussing it and feeling very grateful that this was a group project and that I could ride their coattails on this one (something I rarely think, let alone do). But of course, the universe had different plans.

Our professor wanted to hear from just a few groups before we left and he turned to our table and said 'I want to hear from my favorite group, c'mon Rachael'. Remember when I said I was excited for our professors to learn our names? I stand by that, but I was a little less excited about it at that moment. I gave a short (and completely bullshitted) answer to the class at large while I turned BRIGHT red (turning bright red was the most embarrassing part). After I had said whatever I said (I honestly don't have any idea what came out of my mouth) the two cute guys at the table who I have a crush on (yes, I have a half-crush on both of these guys simultaneously) both complimented me, saying I had said it very well. So there it was, three compliments in 3 minutes.

Some people might have been overjoyed by this. I was not. It is a little known fact that I don't like getting compliments. In fact, it makes me really uncomfortable. I have just recently developed the ability to not be openly angry and somewhat hostile to those who give me compliments. So I took my over-complimented self on a walk and while I walked I thought about what these compliments might mean, both for me and for the people who gave them.

These particular compliments felt uncomfortable because they were genuine. My professor called our table his favorite and then called on me by name, not because I sucked up to him, or because I told him what I thought he wanted to hear, or because we all did outstanding work, but because I was accidentally myself. He caught me off guard and I showed him a version of myself that was natural and pretty true. My classmates complimented me because I did a good job, not because I was pretty, or because I had agreed with them, but again, because I was myself. This scares me. No, this terrifies me.

What if people start liking me for who I really am?

Introverted Adventures at University

So I started back at school full time last week, (well, technically two weeks ago, but last week was the first full full week). The last time I was in school was 7 years ago and it was a completely different can of worms. It was a small Tech school and I was the youngest person in my program. Now I find myself at the second largest University in America, and I am one of the oldest people in my classes. I'm not THE oldest in all of them, but I am in some of them. And I'm not trying to say I'm old or anything, in fact, until going back to school I didn't feel old at all (ok, maybe I felt a little bit old when my baby sister graduated from High School). But now I sit in a group with kids in their early twenties and I think 'was I ever so young and naive?' Mostly I'm grateful for all the growing up I've done, I'm grateful to be who I am. I am grateful to be a 29 year old who finally has an idea of what she wants, I'm grateful to be so far along in my recovery that I can actually learn, I'm grateful to know myself well enough to know (or at least have a pretty good idea of) what works for me. I'm glad I don't feel like a freak for not liking classes with 200 kids in them.

Still, as much as it helps to know that being an introvert isn't going to kill me, and that I don't have to try to be like everyone else, or change my learning style to fit everyone elses (and its helpful to know that about half of my class secretly agrees with me), I can't help but notice how extroverted my school is. Its as though it has extroversion as part of founding tenets. I imagine a school founded and run by introverts would never even imagine offering a class to 200 students at a time. The good news about my giant class is that it only meets once a week, I only have to sit in a room full of 200 kids 13 more times.

I also have a class of about 100. I wondered for a moment why that class didn't make me as anxious, was it because my threshold for crowds was more than 100 but less than 200? I don't think so. There may be 100 kids in the classroom, but we are all sitting at tables with about a half dozen other students, and on the first day we were encouraged to get to know the people we were sitting with as they would be the group we would be working with for the rest of the semester. That immediately brought the class from feeling like a rather overwhelming 100 students to a much more manageable 7 students. One of the things I strongly dislike about being in such big classes is the feeling that I am just one in a crowd, that the professors don't actually care about me, that I am in no way shape or form special or unique, that it wouldn't matter to them if I never showed up at all. And part of what I hate about that feeling is that if it doesn't matter to them if i show up or not, it probably doesn't matter to them if I am actually learning anything or not.

At the end of this week I was exhausted. I didn't realize it until today, Sunday, when I finally had a chance to breathe. There is a fabulous Trad Irish musician in town playing a house concert tonight and as much as I want to go, I am too tired and lonely to be in a crowd of people. I have a whole week of being in crowds ahead of me, I need to rest up. This is the only part of being an introvert that I really dislike; when there is an event that I actually want to attend, but don't have the energy for, due to using my precious social energy all week on things like sitting in class, and walking down crowded sidewalks.

I do, however, feel very very blessed to finally have a best friend who gets it, who knows I want to go, but just can't. I am glad to have someone to whom I can say 'i'm too lonely to be around people right now', who understands it, who doesn't need me to explain (because lets face it, when you try to explain that to an extrovert they look at you like you are insane or just making excuses). I extra-love my best friend because he is going to record the concert for me. Which means that I will eventually get to listen to the music without all the hassle of the crowd of people I am acquainted with, but don't want to talk to. The sound quality might not be as pristine as it will be live, but I will actually be able to enjoy what I hear, whereas if I dragged myself out of the house tonight the whole thing would feel like a chore.

Knowing myself is a wonderful thing.