So, I don’t know if I will ever talk about the thing.
I remember reading an essay of the Yarn Harlot’s once–something had happened in her family that she didn’t want to share–but she wanted to share the after-effect, which was simply, that for about two weeks, she was so heartbroken she couldn’t even knit. There had been no death in the family, which she would have felt able to talk about, but that didn’t mean there had been no grief. The essay detailed her and her husband going to the grocery store together because neither of them could think clearly enough for only one of them to go. “Our hearts were broken, that is all you need to know.”
I’m going
with that approach. Start with last Tuesday, the 10th, and our hearts were broken–and go from there. In the last two weeks there have been trips and visits and meetings to deal with what happened that day. There has been an attempt to fix the breaking, to achieve equilibrium, to ensure against further breakage. There has been suppressed anger (we’re white people who eat our feelings–no cookie is safe) and suppressed grief and mental and emotional exhaustion.
And a trip to the doctor’s on my part that netted blood pressure medication and gel for my arthritis which is moderate–not mild–and currently kicking my ass. In the middle of all of the above vague posting, I couldn’t walk for three days because my knee was threatening to go bone on bone.
Ou.
Ch.
And in the middle of that, someone backed into my car at the grocery store.
And I don’t know how to explain my stress levels this week except to say that the fender bender came up in conversation on Sunday night and the whole family was like, “What? Wait, what? You didn’t even mention–wait–what?”
And I was like, “How important is the mildly munched door seam really?”
And the whole fam went, “Oh. Yeah. See your point.”
I’m aware that none of this came out on social media, btw, not even the small things, or the arthritis or the medication or any of that shit, because it was SO SMALL in relation to the other thing that I didn’t feel like I could talk about one without talking about the other because it was unbearably private. And NOT talking about something often make it even more stressful… like I said. No cookie was safe.
Which brings me to today.
Two packages arrived today.
One had two skeins of absolutely stunning yarn which has, I think, been discontinued. Last Tuesday I started a project using this yarn having only one skein of it, and I realized that the skein wasn’t going to create a shawl of the size I wanted so I found some at a small vendor and ordered it.
The other package was a giant box of Girl Scout Cookies. Four packages of Samoas at the least, Tagalongs, Lemon cookies… it was all there.
Mate didn’t even bat an eyelash.
“After last week, my stress buying amounted to two skeins of yarn and 10 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies. That’s really not bad,” I said.
“Nope.”
And then we both went back to trying to work. After he demolished a package of Samoas.
And for a moment, we’re okay–the only cookies at risk have arrived by post, and really, they weren’t long for this world anyway.
