A Divided Heart

I'm going to dinner with a friend tomorrow night.  Actually, I'm taking her out to dinner.  To celebrate.  Her engagement.

Even just thinking about it makes me a little tired.  Don't get me wrong, she's a good friend, and I love spending an evening with her whenever I can get a chance.  But tomorrow night is going to be an endless game I play with myself and my divided heart.

I love her.
I am so happy for her.
I want to be her.

None of us are strangers to jealousy.  If you say you've never felt that deep stomach twinge, you're a liar.  Even the kindest, most humble people have had those moments of "Why me?"  
It's natural.  But it's so dark.

I miss the man I love.  He's been away for a long time, and each day seems a little harder to swallow when I stop to think of it.  I hate each and every mile between us, I hate the circumstances that keep him away, I hate the knowledge that even if he were here, there would still be struggles to overcome and difficulties to face.

I love my friend.  I feel blessed to have her living near me for the time being, that I can be a part of stories she will tell to loved ones in years to come.  But I want to cry and rage and stamp my feet and scream that no one can be happy until I can be happy.

The dark and the light, they live in two places in my heart.  The light is for everyone.  The light is what shines when you run into acquaintances in the gym or when the cashier asks how you're doing today.  The darkness isn't for everyone or every time or everywhere.  The darkness isn't even always for those who would normally take it.  I've shared my dark heart with my friend before, spilling out sadness and anger and doubt about my love, my job, my home.  But I won't lay my darkness about her marriage at her feet.  Does she know?  Oh, I'm sure she knows.  I'm sure she can get 4 from 2 + 2 and knows that my loneliness and yearning make it hard to hold a smile, but I won't tell her that.  She doesn't deserve my darkness in her light.

I'll tell you, though.  I'll tell other dear friends, and I'll even tell myself.  I won't let the darkness fester in dark corners alone, I'll bring it out into my consciousness, out into the world, where light and love can shine and make it a little less dark when I tuck it away again to celebrate with her.

Night Sky Wedding Quilt

I don't even want to admit how long ago I intended to post this blog - let's just say it's been quite a while!  I would have gotten around to it much sooner if I'd been able to access the photos that were meant for this post - it's always something, right?

I first talked about this project in this post.  The Night Sky Quilt was a wedding gift for a friend I have known for almost 18 years, and I designed the pattern myself.  I didn't want to share pictures of it until after she and her husband opened it, just in case they got back to her, so here they finally are!

As you can see, I'm still working on finding an easy place to hang quilts for picture-taking.  I'm on my tiptoes on a chair behind this queen-size, and you're still missing out on some of the edges!

I have a friend in my fabulous long-arm quilter Lyn.  She has done all of the long-arm for my mom and I, and she really truly lets the fabrics speak to her.  If you're in East Central MN and looking for a quilter, let me put you in touch with her!

Night Sky is really a simple pattern - with the exception of the stars, it's all squares!  I think the hardest part of this pattern was laying it out and then keeping it straight while my dog and nephew were busy trying to get in the way!  As you can see here, it has a scrap quilt look to it, but I used mostly fat quarters to give it that feel.  This quilt reminded me of a very important lesson - fat quarters do not cut in the same dimensions as a quarter-yard!  A few of the fabrics came up a few squares short of what I had so meticulously planned for them.  As always in quilting, adapt and overcome!

I hope you love Night Sky!  If you have any questions about my design process, measurements, the finished product, or anything, leave me a comment.

Numb

I started my morning off with a cruise through Facebook, like I usually do.  I stopped on a specific post, a longer one, because I knew whatever was said by this person would catch in my heart.

"I think when there is no end in sight or no date to return God puts a sort of numbness on me so I don't feel the entire pain of missing him."

I certainly understand that.

The author of the post was talking about the child she hopes to adopt, who is on another continent, and though I'm not adopting, I know that kind of numbness.

I haven't seen my SO in almost two years.  I know most people think that's crazy and ridiculous, and I'm not here to justify my relationship to the world.  He and I have lives that don't give much right now, and so we struggle to find time to be in the same timezone.

People always say long distance relationships don't work.  Sometimes that's true.  I've said before, distance is tough.  I think one of the hardest things about being away from your loved one is not having all of the little daily reminders of why you love them.  He's not there to stop and grab flowers before a date, or pick up your favorite orange juice before you spend the night, or help you rearrange the furniture without complaining.  Your love, in a way, has to perpetuate itself.

Being lonely for someone gnaws at you.  But when that person is gone every day, it can't gnaw all the time.  You can't spend every waking moment pining.  You have to have fun, to enjoy days without him, and to be content without him sometimes.  It's healthy.

Those moments, though, are when I think people start to question their LDR.  "If I'm fine without him, why are we together?"

That question is a liar.

You have to be fine without him.  Even if you were married and together every day, you'd have to be okay being separated.  If you weren't, that would certainly be a sign of an unhealthy dependence.  Surviving and thriving while separated doesn't mean you don't love your partner, it means you love yourself and your relationship enough to be strong, to build toward better things, to work to build a life where you can be together.

Two days ago was my love's birthday.  Because of his job, I didn't even get to call him on his birthday.  It sucked.  I thought all day of how I would celebrate him if we were together.  At the same time, I went to work, made dinner for one, and never let myself cry because the last thing I wanted to do on his birthday was bring him down by piling my sadness on top of his.

Being numb is sometimes the only way to cope.

Trying New Things

Trying new things is generally not my style.

This year, though, I'm trying to focus on a quote from the TV show Blue Bloods:

I have a secure base.  It doesn't get much more secure than living in your hometown and working for the company that gave you your first job.  Whoever said "you can't go home again" really missed the mark.  You can go home again - you just go home changed.

So though I'll admit that what I've been up to lately doesn't really qualify as daring, it is a new year and I'm making some new choices.

First, a new craft.  My mom bought me a sock loom (I adore socks) for Christmas 2013, and I am finally giving it a try.

You're looking at the better part of six hours of work.

I had to start over at one point, and I'm doing this at work, but still.  Slow going.

This isn't my first experience with loom knitting, but knitting socks is very different.  The yarn is extremely fine (I'm currently using a 2 yarn, but most of the patterns call for a 1 weight), so it has a different texture and the finished product grows very slowly.

The yarn I'm using, in Grapes.

Second, a new beverage.  I have had tea once in my lifetime, about ten years ago.  I can't tell you what kind of tea it was - a coffee shop gave it to me because they were out of what I actually wanted - but I hated it.  My friends, on the other hand, are tea lovers, and one of them is hosting a party for a company called Steeped Tea.  I love to support a direct sales business person!  I'm getting one rooibos tea and one green tea, so we'll see how it goes.

http://www.steepedtea.com/

And last, a new supplement.  Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely an advocate of modern medicine, vaccines, and the power of medical science.  I do not approve of turning our backs on the power of medicine - the recent measles outbreak is proof enough that medicine is an important part of quality of life.  The rise of superbugs and antibiotic resistance is proof enought, though, that sometimes it's better to not have a pill and potion for everything.

So, I'm trying out essential oils.  Several acquaintances have been using oils with good results, and I'm willing to see if I can get any relief from my upset stomach and and sinus congestion.  My first trial run will be with peppermint, cedarwood, and lemon.  We'll see how it goes!

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