Neglect

I have been neglecting my knitting.
I have been neglecting my blog.
I have been neglecting my yarn stash.
I have been neglecting my yarn stores.

In two weeks I will be moving to New Orleans. I'm packed, ready to go. I need to wash the sheets and a few sundries, but I could actually load the truck today and leave. Except for the part about not being able to afford the truck til I get my last two paycheques. "It's the little things that get you when you're not paying attention" (credit: Jim Infantino and Jim's Big Ego).

I actually have not knit a stitch in 15 days (as of this writing). Not even at knit-night, which I attended last night. I got there a bit late, but never actually pulled my knitting from my backpack. I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe because where I'm staying I have internet, something I haven't had for the last four-and-a-half years. Maybe it's because my clock radio is packed and I can't listen to NPR while I've got the needles in my hands. Maybe the constant tension headache has me realising that my tension will be affected (see what I did there?).

I am feeling conflicting emotions (does anyone remember that song by Split Enz?). I am excited and happy because Brandon and I will finally be together, in the same state, the same city, the same house. I feel like I might be establishing a home, for the first time in, well, more years than I care to think about. We have a wicked pissah apartment (it's only a block from Bornside Yarns!), with two bedrooms (we can have guests!), with a washer and dryer (no more hunting for quarters!), and a dishwasher (no more dishpan hands!). We're talking about getting a cat (me! a cat! whodathunkit?). My friend Rachael is having a really hard time wrapping her mind around the idea that I want a cat. I'm happy and I feel like dancing. Hell, I even have my own version of a happy dance. I do it every now and then when I think about our life together in New Orleans, a town I've almost moved to several times over the last 20 years (but never did, because of commitments back in Boston).

I'm also feeling rather blue. And not Betty Draper's. I'm leaving a city that has been my home for five decades. I'm leaving behind friends, colleagues, and people I love with an intensity so fierce that it sometimes hurts. I realised that I am leaving the city I love to be with the man I love. And I am beginning to understand the dilemma of the Little Mermaid (the Hans Christian Anderson original, not that travesty by Disney). Nothing worth having is without a price. I can have my much loved home town. I can have my beloved companion. I cannot have both. I've waited a long time for someone like Brandon to come into my life. I've made my choice, I'm making my peace with it. I remind myself that Helen Keller once said, "Life is a daring adventure, or it is nothing."

But my knitting lies neglected. Not forgotten, no, because I carry two projects in my backpack all the time. There's even a box of stuff labeled, Current Projects. It's a lie. I opened it, hoping to find some current projects, and there was nothing in it that I have actually worked on in over a year. Some UFOs, sure, but nothing that could with any honesty be called "current". What the hell was I thinking?

My knitting lies neglected, and I don't have the energy to pick it up and work on it. Maybe I'll feel better if I pick it up. Maybe I don't want to. Feel better, I mean. Maybe I need to feel the sadness that comes from contemplating a 1400 mile move, to a new state, a new city, a new home. And when I get on the road, I can shake these blues, maybe leave them behind. I'll pick up needles and yarn, and knit withe passion and fervor.

For now, though, my knitting lies neglected.