Today, which is now yesterday to you, I had my first pap smear in over ten years. I have had the appointment on my calendar for a month and every time I noticed it, I felt a sense of dread wash over me. I woke up at 4:30 am to make sure I had plenty of time to shower, eat, and walk the dogs before I left. Knowing full well it would be prime rush hour traffic I gave myself twice the amount of time necessary. About halfway into my drive, traffic stopped on the interstate and the overhead advisory board indicated all four lanes were blocked due to an accident. I still had 15 minutes until I would be late, but my anxiety was mounting…as my mind shouted maybe this is for a reason, maybe you shouldn’t go!
I arrived more than 20 minutes late and the nurse informed me it would be another hour wait because I was late, and they would have to fit me in. Now in addition to being anxious I was annoyed. My mind, again chiming in...this situation was out of my control, all the lanes (including the toll road or fast lane as we call it) were stopped. The only thing I could do is wait. I am literally never late to anything. As I sat stewing in the waiting room, I kept thinking to myself this is why I won’t be back for another ten years.
Moving on quickly for those of you who are still here with me, I survived the examination and then headed to the bookstore to reward myself for not canceling the appointment and/or bolting out of there. I promised myself I could have anything I wanted. So, I ordered a Chai Latte at the cafe, selected two crafty magazines, and two books. When I was checking out the cashier asked if I found what I was looking for and then some...I replied, there are worse things I could do and we both laughed.
Then I came home and pulled my patio loveseat out into the sunshine, tossed a friendship quilt on top of it and spent the day outside decompressing to the sounds of birds chirping and squirrels frolicking. Some of you know, I made this quilt online with friends over the course of 3 months. I’ve never met any of them in person, but I do enjoy spending time with them online and I feel like they were there with me today in spirit, getting me outa my head and bringing me back down to reality as the stress and angst melted away.
One of the books I bought today was entitled Please Unsubscribe, Thanks!: How to Take Back Our Time, Attention, and Purpose in a World Designed to Bury Us in Bullshit. As I skimmed through it I realized maybe one of the friends who unsubscribed to our community last week, might have read this book. At the time, I felt sad to see her go; but, I respected her choice and will continue to deeply admire her as a maker. I won’t ever know her motivation for leaving the group but I do want to reiterate my intention for running the group, for writing this weekly email, for posting on social media, for creating more than 400 sewing tutorials on YouTube.
My whole purpose for any of this is to connect people and expose them to the joy of creativity. There are so many instances in my life that creativity has been a literal lifeline. I am not here to add to the noise, get rich, or complicate your life in anyway. In fact, that is some of why I don’t make as many videos, preschedule all my social media, and in general don't hang out on social media. I just want to make stuff with other people who want to make stuff. That’s it. Rant over…thanks for listening. Love you and I’ll see you Thursday, 7 pm in the Studio 365 Live Room.
Andrea
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