A lot

I was having lunch with a friend the other day when she paused for a minute and said: "wow, you have a lot on your plate right now." I could feel a look of panic - that deer in the headlights expression we all know - come across my face as I smiled and replied, "yes, I know." Work has been especially busy this month - in a good way, but overwhelming nonetheless. And it helped me take my mind off some overwhelming things on the personal front, too.

My father died three and a half weeks ago. He had been ill with dementia for a long time, and the man I knew as my father ceased to exist years ago. But my father died, and that hit me harder than I had expected.

I have spent the last three and a half weeks debating how I wanted to talk about this on the blog, if at all. 

On the day he died, before the reality of his death fully hit me, I thought about writing up one of the FO posts that are long overdue. But pretending that nothing had happened felt inappropriate. Because something fundamental had shifted in my world, even though life continued like normal for everyone else.

I've thought about trying to write about what I've been feeling. How I've felt numb, how I haven't wanted to read testimonials that other people have written about my father because the emotions that they brought up have been too raw. How I felt like an interloper at the celebration of his life because much of the focus there was on a part of his life that happened before I was even born. But this is incredibly personal and not something I necessarily want to broadcast for everyone to see.

I've thought about not blogging at all. Just stopping and not writing any more because I don't know quite what to say. My world shifted. Yours didn't. How do I address and acknowledge that?

I'll try this:

My father died. 

There's so much more to it than those three little words but they'll do for now. 

Let me show you one of my favorite projects: a stranded colorwork sweater that I designed and knit up as a gift for my father when I was still in college.

I still have all of the leftover yarn from this project (Brown Sheep Nature Spun Fingering - there's quite a bit of it) and I'm going to design and knit some sort of jumper or dress for tadpole. There's no way I'd be able to have it finished in time for her birthday in two weeks so she'll get her inauguration into the grand Tinks and Frogs tradition of receiving the promise of a handknit as her gift. Somehow I don't think this will work too well once she's old enough to understand the concepts of birthdays and presents so I'd better take advantage while I still can.

Where do we go from here?

I have four FOs to show you - Catkin, Stripe Study, Millwater (a lovely infinity scarf), and another pair of my favorite Gentlemen's Shooting Stockings with Fluted Pattern. Mr. Tinks and Frogs has a promised sweater design that I haven't talked about yet. I've made progress on Girasole. I'm organizing the stash and there will be some yarn giveaways.

So expect some random posts as I try to catch up and move forward. I haven't felt up to commenting on blogs for the past month but I'm getting there. I wasn't even reading them for a while (it felt like cheating to read where I normally comment when I knew I wasn't in a place where I could write anything in return) but I've taken that up again in the past week and I'm almost caught up.

It's a process, right?