Living Selfishly and Loving It, and Close Enough Can Be Fine.

So, after all that agonizing about the 4th skein of Lion and Lamb and the apparent Non-Matching of the Greens, I ran out of yarn 1/4 of the way into Section 4 of the Clapotis. I needed the 4th skein. I looked again at the 4th skein. I turned on the Ott Light (love that thing!) and sat with the Clapotis and the 4th skein, obessively matching colors. And I concluded that while the green is a teensy itsy bitsy bit different, the other colors are perfectly matched. So it may be the same dye lot and just a discrepancy in that skein (though the other three were remarkably consistent). I decided to go for it - the blues and purples predominate, the green is not different enough to be distracting, and I could drive to Leesburg and not get a better match. Onward I knit. I'll finish this sucker this week, if not this weekend.

I obsessed on it yesterday. I think it was the 4th skein fear - I wanted to see if I'd need it, then figure out what I was going to do about it. Now it's resolved, so today I can Step Away from the Clapotis and run errands and get out in the sunshine.

I'm reading this book right now, and it really is helping me formulate a plan for moving to St. Augustine. Barbara Sher is probably the most useful "self-help" author I've ever read, she encourages risk-taking and creativity in a pragmatic way. I nod along with a lot of her observations about our conditioning as children, the lack of encouragement we may have received when we talked about our dreams. "Lack of encouragement" puts it nicely - I never had a good idea. Every dream I ever voiced around my parents was shot down immediately.

I'm now at a stage in my life where I am determined to live my way, not my parents' way, my husband's way, or anyone else's. I'm looking at where I am in life now as a strangely backhanded "gift" from the Universe - I never wanted to get it the way I did, but I can use it anyway.

It's funny, too, how things do come about in their own way - I knew I was restless in Orlando, I thought about moving but didn't know where. I'm 47 and I've never in my life had the chance to answer the question, "What do I want?" When I was a child, my parents answered it for me: "You don't want what you think you want. You'll never succeed at that. What's the matter with you?" As I grew up, many decisions were made in the "lesser of two evils" manner - everything from my career choice to the car I drive was determined by circumstances and not really my choice. Marriage is, of course, a compromise, and again much of what I wanted (and what he wanted) was sacrificed to the common good. I think the kitchen remodeling in 2004 was the first time I can remember that I did something "big" and made all the decisions without having to compromise to please anyone else. I could get used to that.

So the odds of my remarrying? Not so high at this point. I'd rather be a girlfriend than a wife. The odds of my moving to a beach town in North Florida, finding something else to do with my life and spending a lot of Sunday mornings watching the sun rise on the ocean? Those odds are pretty damn good. I'm going to make that happen.

So those were yesterday's knitting-fueled ruminations. I also re-evaluated the wisdom of a trip to Maryland Sheep and Wool this year. I just can't justify it. I have so many other ways to spend that money, I don't need to add to the stash, and while I really want to get together with the people I'd be with, I just can't justify the money and time at this point in my life. I think I'm bowing out for this year.

Super Target calls, and I must answer. Time to get moving.