The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Sparrows

As the fading daylight turns golden, the house settles, and the stitches in the blanket I am making for my mum take shape, no longer just a blob. The soft yarn cascades through the skein, through busy hands and clicking knitting needles. I do not think it will be done by Mother’s Day as intended. Life, as it often does, had other ideas; chief among them, a tendonitis flare in my dominant hand. With the warming weather as it begins to settle into a pattern of its own, it has subsided, and I feel able to take up my needles again and work away. I’ve already warned her it would not be finished, but I do have a couple of bits and bobs I’ve collected, in a mushroom motif (her favorite!), to give her in its stead, so all is not lost. Now, I find myself wrestling with a familiar foe: the nagging weight of missing a self-imposed deadline. Silly, isn’t it? I suppose we all feel this way from time to time, especially as middle age settles in and certain aches become steady companions. I do have to catch myself from getting into the mindset to work on this longer than is comfortable, or take time away from other things to complete it. But that goes against the heart of slow-crafting and self-kindness, doesn’t it? What joy is there in working through pain, pushing on when the hands that create can barely hold the needles?

I wonder how do you handle those moments when things don’t go quite as planned? Do you let them drift away like loose threads, or do they linger a while before settling into acceptance?