Newfound drive toward self-fulfillment

I am so excited for my sewing class in two weeks. I am excited to (re)learn a new skill and put that skill to work. I have a friend taking a very similar class next week and I think we will both have a lot of fun. Now, if only that friend was in Denver, and not New York, we could take the class together, go fabric shopping, and generally enjoy the new-feminist craftiness that is overtaking my generation. (Maybe overtaking is an exaggeration, but I think there is a lot more knitting, sewing, hand-making, etc. lately than in the recent past. It skipped a couple of generations and now it is "cool" again. Or maybe I just didn't know about it before. Maybe every generation has this same awakening, but because it is something done at home and among friends it isn't something I would have noticed.)

I've been thinking a lot lately about happiness and joy, discontent and melancholy. Because I've been feeling very melancholy. I am not getting enough sleep, I'm not eating the best foods, I'm not getting any exercise. I am merely existing. I lament that I have no time for anything and that I am too tired to do anything even if I did have the time. But then Jon said something that struck me. "You have to prioritize." It is something one of his dad-friends said to him in response to the question, "how to you find the time" with kids and jobs and life. I am going to be tired, but that doesn't mean I can't do anything. (I also just was diagnosed with pretty serious hypothyroidism. I'm getting on some meds and that should help with the exhaustion.) I have a few snippets of time to myself on the weekend, and a couple hours of time at night after Evie goes to sleep, to do what I want to do.

So what what do I want to do? What makes me happy? I made a list:

1. Knitting, and all knitting-related activities. Reading patterns, reading blogs, browsing yarn stores. I love it all.
2. Spending time with my husband.
3. Other creative adventures. I'm going to relearn how to sew, and that is exciting. I also really enjoy baking. I want to plant a strawberry plant. I also like to read about other people's creative adventures.
4. A clean house. I feel so much better about myself and my world when my house is clean. Sadly, I hate cleaning. But one cannot exist without the other and so I must buckle down and do some tidying up. Just 15 minutes after Evelyn goes to bed would make a world of difference.

And so I will return to this list from time to time when I am laying on the couch watching another rerun of Seinfeld. Does Seinfeld make me happy? No, not really. TV makes me laugh and helps me unwind and relax, but it does not make me happy. It is a time filler. I have limited time, I have to prioritize, and so the place for TV will be much more limited.

Evelyn is my love and my light, but she is not my entire life. I am feeling good about my newfound drive toward self-fulfillment.