just do something

A few weeks ago, my jaw seized up and it has been locked ever since. I’ve had pain on opening it for a few years now, but this is a brand new level of dysfunction, which my body specialises in. I suspect that the orthodontists who played with my jaw in an attempt to create the ‘perfect profile’ were the ones who started my trouble, and I have zero inclination to let man fiddle with such a crucial joint ever again. Aside from the pain and inconvenience of such a small mouth opening, I was initially terrified that I would have to get it treated. I felt so trapped: my jaw is not working and I probably have a long life ahead of me, but I dare not get it manipulated again.

If you know me at all, you will know that I google everything. My google history mortifies me. I was reading a forum of others with TMJ, and I read this comment:

“Some people find that they can live with TMJ, while others try various treatment options.”

I felt a flush of peace – there are people everywhere living with physical/emotional/mental pain. It’s isn’t rare to be living with these burdens, and it is okay.   

Every year I seem to view my illness a little differently. The current stage is this: that full healing or wellness may or may not come, but it is not essential for a worthwhile life. Life on planet earth seems to be filled with a myriad of pain and mess, and while we are right to do all we can to reverse these things, we also have to carry on amidst them. Sometimes I feel so bogged down in all the challenges in my life and my friend’s and families’, and discouraged by the lack of quick solutions. It’s as though real living were only possible when things are running smoothly, and because things aren’t yet, I must keep waiting for the point when they are.

I have waited, and cried, and prayed, and tried for five years, and I am not well. But I am more well, and now I know how to manage the health that I do have. It’s possible that there will not be full solutions for me in this life. This thought which once had me crying sits in me peacefully. My mindset is starting to shift from waiting to get well, to considering how I want to live if this is as well as I am going to be. If this is it, what should I do with it?

If I had not strived for solutions in last five years, I don’t think I would be as well as I am today. I needed to stop and radically change many things. But if I keep striving for solutions, I fear that I will look back and wish that at some point I had stopped waiting around for them to come before I did such and such.  

I’ve been reading this book by Kevin DeYoung called, “Just Do Something – how to make a decision without dreams, visions, fleeces, impressions, open doors, random bible verses, casting lots, liver shivers, writing in the sky e.t.c.”

I have been going through a not-quite-quarter-century crisis: I’ve been at home for several years and I’m feeling restless, I’m coming towards my mid twenties, I have no qualifications, I might not make a full recovery – what on earth do I do with what I have been given? I was so fearful that I wouldn’t make a perfect decision, even though there is no such thing. But from insights in the book, I have arrived at this feeling of calm: Don’t wait around for things to fall perfectly into place. It’s called life: things aren’t perfect. Take a well thought out step with all the unknowns it brings, and then live faithfully one day at a time.

At this point in my story, I want to make some decisions which stretch me, rather than lie in bed waiting for the elusive cure.

   

One small sized decision: Should we travel to New Zealand, even though we don’t know how I will cope with such a trip? We eventually decided yes. We have booked our flights, and in a few months we head off to the snow – good health or nasty setback, I am glad we’re stepping out of our home to explore.  

  

happy days {and machine makes}

I have been happy with the joy and relief that only comes from the removal of pain.

It's ten days since my last virus. Because of my tres dodgy immune system, I find myself living my days as if each were my last before another virus - because, there's a high chance. Without viruses, I seem to be at a high level of functioning at the moment and because I'm over my fear of jinxing myself, I can write that fearlessly.

I have been sitting in front of my sewing machine instead of lying on the couch and here are my makes:

Scout Tee from Grainline Studio - My sewing disaster day. I kept predicting that I would have a disaster soon, and it came right on cue, that is, on my favourite peice of fabric. I printed the PDF pattern, cut the fabric given to me by my sister...and then realised that the peices looked very small. I was sure I was meant to be a size 0 in American Sizing. I wonder if people smaller than me are -2? It's kind of rude. Anyway, it turns out I hadn't checked that the PDF had printed to the correct scale, and my pattern was a lot smaller than it ought to have been. It was size 0 minus a few. If I hadn't been using such precious fabric I would have given up - instead I carried on, literally moaning in despair and wondering if I could salvage my top.
One stressful day later, I have a cropped tee which I absolutely love with my highwasted clothes. It's far from perfect, but strangely one of my favourite items.

Amerson Undies - I made these because Wolfgang is an underwear eating hound. I don't scream all that often, but when I catch him in the act, I am a mad woman. High pitched. Sometimes I worry I will yell at my future babies, but they won't eat undies so I'll be ok. Although I was happy with the results, they were a bit too fiddly. Basically, I wanted faster gratification.

DIY Tunic - I dream of drafting my own patterns but six weeks into my sewing challenge was possibly too soon. The sleeves were the terrifying bit, but through some fluke they kind of worked. This 'dress' is more of a sack/tent featuring shape-free fit and vanishing curves technology. I think I will wear my shabby creation.

Ensis Tee - a second one, using the leftover fabrics. I love these solid warm tops, particularly how they are simple enough to sew up in a day.

Next up: Saiph Tunic. I'm going to make this with my sister, and it will be my first dress attempt.

sew well - the ensis tee

Sewing is saving the day.

I feel very invigorated by my 2014 challenge to make my wardrobe. Invigorated is not something I am accustomed to feeling. My mind is absorbed and stretched, and I feel like I have found my perfect antidote to boredom.  

Making clothes is very similar to music for me. It’s mostly mundane and methodical, which I find grounding and soothing. But there are flickers of creative excitement throughout the process, and they keep me hungry for more.

The Ensis Tee pattern arrived from NZ just as my latest virus was {finally} easing, so the timing was perfect. I need some warm winter tops to replace my stinky ones, and I feel that sewing with knits is the next step in my progress, so that’s why I went to Joy’s Fabric Warehouse and bought 100% Cotton Jersey. A solid lycra-free beginning. I know I'm going to wear this one a lot, and I plan to make a second soon.

Pattern: Papercut Patterns, Ensis Tee
Level: Novice
Next up: Amerson Undies.
When I vowed to make my clothes this year, I fully intended to continue buying my lingerie. The other day I needed a half slip, and forced myself to make one from a 50c too-large Berlei slip which I found in the op shop. I still don't plan to make all my lingerie, but a cute pair of {maybe floral} undies appeals. The idea of recycling old t-shirts into underwear is growing on me too.

the trouble with me

Found

Lately it has been raining outside and inside. And unlike the original title of my blog {dance in the rain}, there has been absolutely no dancing.

The warm days are taking their final curtsies, and as the skies are growing increasingly grey and the air increasingly cool, my body is also hibernating. Which wasn’t supposed to happen.

I had written this strikingly positive 2014 script in my head. I held out masses of hope that this winter would be better, because this winter we were staying still in one place, and because I’ve changed my diet radically, and because I’m ‘happy’ here. This is supposed to be the year for getting well.

Now that I write that, it seems extraordinarily naive. Especially in such a ‘doesn’t respond to anything you do’ kind of illness. Especially as I have had five years to ponder the reality that the whole me-in-control concept is false.

If this illness is hanging around until I’ve learnt what I need to learn, I fear it will be hanging around for a long long time. I really hope that’s not how these things work.

I think I have been chasing for the perfectly ripe healing environment, and now that I supposedly have it and find myself plodding into a winter just as miserable as the last four, I am a mess.

Not an external mess. You wouldn’t be able to tell really. If I were to show up somewhere you wouldn’t see the tongue ulcers, swollen glands, red throat, and starry vision. Plus, it would increase tenfold once I returned home, and you wouldn’t see that.

On Saturday night I pulled myself out of bed after a nasty migraine, to attend a party of great importance to me. My eyelids were so puffy that I had to ice them before leaving the house. Later in the night I was talking to a lady I hadn’t met before, and she was charming. Part way through our conversation, my lips began to tremble as I smiled. At this point I became so fixated on releasing my smile slowly and controlling my over exhausted muscles, that in the process I lost complete track of what she was saying. I don’t know if she could see the twitching, but that and my vague replies might have backed up my initial statement that I wasn’t so well.

I feel like I should be joyfully settling down to the ill virus-ridden life with a ‘dance in the rain’ kind of optimism.

“Yes I’m really unwell, but I’m so content.” Smiley face.

“Sorry I can’t come, and no I don’t feel guilty.” Smiley face.

Where is that positivity in the face of sad times which I admire in friends and strangers? I could swear I have had it before. I even believe it will return to me, but in the mean time I feel both unwell and sad. It’s an epically drizzly combination.

Even though I know the moral of the story is not to have my happiness dependent on improvement, realigning my thoughts is slow and uncomfortable. The trouble is that conditional contentment masquerades as real contentment – and then the conditions evaporate, and the contentment is gone. And then you weep because you lost both the thing you wanted, and your happiness.

Perhaps it’s good that I have realised in no uncertain terms that my ‘well 2014’ will take whatever path it will take. It will take it’s path, but my emotional path must be rooted in something else. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

My 2014 challenge

I have decided that 2014 is my learn-to-sew-properly-with-patterns year. I never would have had a chance if I were on the normal path of life, so I feel a sense of delight. The same kind I felt when I to the beach with a friend on a Tuesday while everyone was at work. It’s an unexpected joy of being off the conveyer belt. It’s like when you’re at a conference and the gluten free option is better than the normal. What?!

I plan to make instead of buy as many clothes as possible this year, because I have both the time and desire to invest in 12 months of journeying from pre-beginner levels to almost decent. Actually decent would be ok too.  

Right now I am making skirts. Last week I made a pale pink cotton, and this week a winter navy blue in corduroy. My plan is to buy patterns which I can see myself loving to wear often {no frumpy lumpies, at least not before I've sewn it}, and then find fabric I like at warehouses, opp shops and on sale. Today that meant saying goodbye to the $19.00 per metre houndstooth at Spotlight. Both these fabrics were $5.00 or less per metre.

I love that this skirt can be sewn in two afternoons. The satisfaction is beyond. It actually rivals shopping, but wins because it is affordable, creative and ethical.

Pattern: Everyday Skirt by Oliver+S
Sewing challenge inspiration: Talia Christine Blog
Next project: Papercut - Ensis Tee

back when life was good

found

I think the grass is so lush in other places. I often think that if I was doing what I wanted to be doing, in good health, I would be living in a sunny meadow.  

A couple of weeks ago we went to Melbourne. I went with my favourite man, wore my favourite dress, and the sun shone. At the end of the day we plonked down on the grass in the Tan with chocolate cake that I’d bought along in my tote, of course. I was looking over at the red brick VCA (victorian college of the arts), with those million memories of music days rushing at me – and the sadness, and the nostalgia.

“Maybe I am well enough to try again.” I mused, and we both know this is not the reality. We have this conversation every Melbourne day, and sometimes in between. We really like this conversation.

“We could get a little tiny apartment close by, and I would work at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and we could have our lunch breaks together...” Ben was saying.

And then the next part of the conversation goes like this: “Or maybe I should do an Arts degree because then I wouldn’t have the stress of practicing all the time?”

And then we revise it a little further: “If you’re doing an Arts degree, you could do it in Geelong which is less tiring.” But I always say, “But I want to do it in Melbourne, because it makes me feel alive.” {Despite being the city which made me almost dead}. But Ben knows what I mean, soul mate. The conversation always ends with, “But I would probably relapse again, and I don't think it's worth the risk.”

We know that script so well.

When we got home that evening, I had a kind of epiphany, about something I should have known. I have a full life here and now. I’m not sure I would swap it for the one I had, if it came to it. 

In the dreaming I always forget the tied-up feeling that I had. I wasn't a free bird. I've put a pretty filter on some of the harder realities.

My life is full of a freedom and variety I didn’t have. I read Wild Swans by Jung Chang last week, and I had time to look at China on the map, and research Mao. I bought my second sewing pattern, and I gave up practicing my flute to pin and sew. Wednesday bought me back to my needy kittens and all their mess and vulnerability. I spent a sweet lazy Saturday with Ben, free from the old guilt I had in our early relationship: but, I could be practicing now.

You know from my hundred other posts that there has been great pain, and great sadness. It’s not a life of ease, but I realised that I am developing and exploring {sometimes barely, sometimes a lot}, and when my health is a little better as it is now, I even feel like I am flourishing.  And all this, away from the place I thought I wanted to be most of all. Would I really have been happy if it had all gone my way? I don’t know. I think the path I am on is just so terribly right. How could something so unravellingly miserable be so freeing? God knew what he was doing I suppose.