Sometimes I post something here and wonder if it's appropriate, or too personal, or makes me sound too shallow or too bitchy or too whatever. So many knitbloggers write these lovely, deep, thoughtful, poetic essays on life and raising children, and I bitch about my wardrobe and the rampant stupidity I've encountered in the world at large. But those snarky, relatively silly, rather "shallow" posts have caused the nicest email from lurkers. It's happened twice in the past week, on unrelated subjects.

I received the nicest mail from a lurker last night, responding to my story of my hottie former boss and how he made me realize I'd let myself go - the lurker identified with the feeling, and felt renewed energy to do something about it. That email in turn boosted me - instead of crawling directly into bed after a day of sitting, I was inspired to do the crunches and freeweights. I write about these things to get them off my chest, and in exchange I get support from people and feel encouraged to plug on with the tasks of building a new life for myself.

So anyway, I'll continue to write a bit about being a middle-aged empty-nest widow with career angst and a mortgage and a bossy little dog, between the knitting - because I feel like saying it and apparently there are folks out there who identify with various parts of it.

Knitting content first this time - I'm plugging along on my red SCC, and I really love this Softball cotton - the fabric is almost chenille-like in its plushness, minus the worming and lack of stretch of real chenille. This is going to be my best sweater yet, and I can't wait to finish it. I'm still in "one project at a time" mode, which is very unlike me, but probably a wise course of action given my time constraints. I'm trying to figure out what I want to add to my wardrobe to compliment this sweater - because at this point I need to pitch most of the contents of my closet. A black Shapely Tank, for sure - if I have enough yarn left over I can add an accent or two of the red, to make a pseudo-twinset. I'm so enamored of this style I can see myself making another one after this - especially since I finally mastered the RIGHT way to do a M1 increase, thanks to
The Knitters Book of Finishing Techniques. I'd learned to do a M1 increase from another source, which has since escaped me, but I swear, it said that "this increase causes a small hole in the fabric" in describing the end result. The author accepted that this was how it was supposed to look, so Dummy Me did too. So when it caused a small hole in the white SCC, I figured okay, that's the intended result. I rarely use this increase, but it's in the pattern so I dutifully did it, following the way I'd learned. Then I read the way to do it in Wiseman's book, and duuuh - if you knit into the BACK of the new stitch, you twist it and close that hole! Sonofagun. So the white SCC has the small increase holes, which are fortunately under the arms and down the sides, and are very neat and uniform and aren't eyesores, but now every time I see it I kick myself for not reading Wiseman's book first. From now on, if I'm suspicious of the results I'm getting in a pattern, I'm going to refer to that book and see what I'm doing wrong.

Shallow chick content - yesterday I received one of those joke chain emails from a co-worker who had sent it to every woman over 40 in the office - the topic of this one was being a middle-aged woman. It was full of "humor" that was really very negative and insulting, all about getting fat and wrinkled and sagging and envying younger women and being "over the hill" sexually. Needless to say, I didn't "forward it on to my friends," as instructed. I don't identify with that image of middle-aged, and I hope to God I never do. I have to wonder why women share things like that as "humor" (forwarded prefaced with, "Oh, this is so true....") why accept that negative stereotype? I think there's a certain amount of self-fulfilling prophecy in that mindset - "What the hell, this is what happens when you hit this age, you can't do anything about it, might as well buy a box of Krispy Kremes."

I'm not trying to be younger than I am. I have no problem with being over 40 and no desire to be 25 again. I might take 35, that was a damn good year, but no younger, thankyouverymuch. I am happy to be my age. I do not feel old and tired and over-the-hill, I feel calmer, wiser, more experienced and less easily stressed than I was in my youth, and I want my body to reflect the way I really feel inside. I'm very psyched to get my neglected abs toned and spruce up my wardrobe again - and maybe, if I really get crazy, I just might pierce my bellybutton, just for fun.

On that note, I had another encounter with a Mournful Cow-eyed Support Sister yesterday - again, somebody who really doesn't know me or how I'm doing, who stopped by to say hello and How ARE You? with intense, searching, Oprah-waiting-for-a-tearful breakdown compassion. As usual, "I'm fine," wasn't quite enough, the searching gaze and mournful countenance didn't shift to something normal. "How are you doing?" "I'm doing fine, I'm really busy, lots to take care of at work and at home." "Oh, that's good, you should keep busy...." Yeahright. I SHOULD take two weeks at a spa and get massaged and pedicured and do yoga 'til I can actually levitate, but I have to clean out the damn garage instead. Life really does go on.

I know she meant well and I really don't get angry at this sincerely misplaced compassion and misjudging of my mental condition, but seriously, after two years of caregiving and nearly three months of sitting at my dying husband's bedside, I am NOT sitting here full of angst and negative thoughts and needing to "keep busy" to "keep my mind off things." My brain was deep-fried to a nice crisp by the time my husband's body finally gave up its fight, and I was quite ready to jump out of that frying pan as fast as I could, and think of haircuts and new clothes and work issues like a NORMAL PERSON. I miss my husband, don't get me wrong, but after the endless hell that was the past several months, I'm actually feeling a whole lot of relief mixed with the sadness, and I'm not just "putting on a brave front." I'm not just "keeping busy," I AM busy, I'm getting back into the world again, and it feels good. I don't like being treated like some sort of emotional invalid, a fragile little broken thing that has to heal, because I really don't feel that way at all, and it's awkward and uncomfortable to be on the receiving end of that sort of kind-but-misguided compassion.

The Bossy One tells me it's time for his morning constitutional, and I must obey.