Why I knit.

I LOVE watching the Sea! All that focused turmoil!

I began to knit often because it calms my anxiety, which needs nothing to activate. It can just sit there, in a state of constant percolation, but when I’m knitting and following a pattern I can zone out the sound of the constant anxiety and just enjoy what I’m doing. There are very few other things that allow me to do that.

I can keep my hands busy instead of fidgeting about or getting bored. I can remember as a child, when being chided about reading at the table when having a meal that I’d try and explain that my brain was bored. My mind would wonder about like a balloon, with nothing to fix on while my hands got on with the mundane business of eating. My hands being occupied wasn’t enough. I needed something to engage my brain as well. Knitting answers both of those needs. While the motion is mechanical there are things to think about. What stage am I up to in the pattern? What will the next stage require? How does it look? Do I need to change anything? 

My brain is never quiet. There is a CONSTANT monologue going on in my head. If I don’t fill it with something to occupy itself with it will fill it with something else...which often isn’t healthy. My anxieties will flood in, my worries for my type 1 diabetes, the fact that I don’t work, that my dear Hubbie has to support us both. I worry about my adult children, especially the youngest who has Aspergers Syndrome and struggles daily with issues due to that. If I don’t fill my mind with something that gives me a little joy, eventually the other thoughts fill it instead until I’m so overwhelmed I just want to disappear.

So...I knit. It’s seems pretty benign but it has given me at least a little hope that I can be productive doing something that is positive to me and can give someone else a little tangible moment of joy for themselves. 

And for that, I am grateful!

Dx