And just like that, 2022 is almost over

If you've been following me, you know I'm not really one to celebrate the New Year. More often than not, I'll just go to bed because the clock will strike midnight whether I'm awake for it or not. You also know that I'm not a fan of resolutions, which have become overly commercialized and focused on radical, unsustainable change.

Rather, I prefer the quiet of having a couple of days to just relax after the busy holiday season, and this year, I won't be terribly sorry to see 2022 go, as it's been a fairly horrible year, but I'm also not the type of person to pin all sorts of unrealistic expectations about how the coming year has to be better than this one. Time is time. Things happen, whether we make unfounded declarations about the way the world turns or not. And for me, I'd much rather not engage in delusions about how things are magically going to turn around as there will always be struggles and difficulties just as there will always be pockets of happiness. It isn't cyclic so much as a series of peaks and valleys and allowing yourself the time and space to experience both.

Time and space are the great gifts of fiber arts, then. Your color choices can echo your emotions, whether you are choosing something bright or sparkly or something more subdued. Pattern choices can reflect the tumult or stasis of your current situtation. How quickly or slowly you work on a project can mimic your energy level. Sometimes even your choice of craft can be an extension of your physical state. And, as Michelle Obama notes in The Light We Carry, the small can help us manage the big.

This is not to say that I don't believe in goal setting because, as a goal-oriented person, I do have a strong belief in setting goals and achieving milestones both big and small. What I don't believe in is the setting of unrealistic goals without some type of scaffolding to reach them, which is what way too many diet, exercise, and beauty commercials try to sell people. Generally, you don't wake up one day and effortlessly change who you are or your natural inclinations.

Instead, we are much more like the small crafts that we do and we learn and change and grow by small, seemingly unnoticeable incriments. If you've never cabled before and you pick up a cable pattern, you don't immediately recognize what C2F means, especially when it may be combined with a C6B or C4F. But the more cabled patterns you follow, the more often you encounter those abbreviations, the easier it becomes to remember what they mean so that you don't have to go back and look at the abbreviation key.

So, as we move into 2023, I hope you are able to take the time and space you need to grow by slowly and sustainably.