Not to succeed, win, have or accomplish
I was an impatient child. Especially when it came to learning.
See, I’m smart. Really smart. And most things came easily to me. I didn’t have to work hard to learn. And things that I didn’t learn immediately…well, I hated them. I didn’t want to do them. I didn’t want to fail. It made me feel bad. And I always felt like whatever energy I put in to something that ended in failure was a waste of my time. It was all about what I had to show for it in the end.
Soon I am going to get back into the workforce, and I would like to get a job teaching crochet, and helping people fix their crochet projects. At least one place I am looking at requires that you know how to both knit and crochet. So recently I started trying to knit again.
I am a bad knitter.
That is an imprecise way of putting it. There are things that I am great at. Like the dexterity parts. I am excellent at making the different stitches. I can make beautiful patterns with them. I can make cables and laces. When it comes to the actual knitting, I am really talented.
But there is another part of knitting that I am really really bad at. I cannot fix mistakes. This is inconvenient for a girl with mild perfectionist tendencies. If I make a mistake anywhere in a project, I don’t know how to get myself back to the point before I made the mistake without unraveling the whole thing. It’s all or nothing. I either have to live with the imperfections, or start again from the beginning. And I can’t stand making mistakes. So, so far, it’s all nothing.
But there is something different about me since I got my eating under control. I am patient. I am now one of those people who believes it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. (Seriously, I never thought I would be one of those people. I promise I don’t have art with motivational sayings. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
So for the past few weeks, I have been knitting. And I have nothing to show for it. And I am a-okay with that. I must have started anew at least ten times. And yet none of the times I unraveled the whole thing and wound it back around the ball of yarn did I feel it was a waste of my time. I wasn’t doing it because I need a scarf or a blanket or a sweater. I have plenty of beautiful clothes. And my house is cozy warm. I was doing it to practice. To get better. To learn. I was knitting to knit. It’s that simple.
The events and circumstances of my life are so much less “significant” since I got my eating disorders under control. And it’s such a relief. I love being free from having to be great at everything. I love having the ability to be incapable without shame. I love being exactly who I am all the time. I can even be ok with being a bit of a perfectionist.
I’m going to put the knitting away for a while. I just finished a really amazing crochet project and I’m ready to do more of that. But it’s nice to do something for the sake of doing it. Not to succeed, win, have, or accomplish.
onceafatgirl 
As usual, grew and relaxed from reading your latest. However, wondering something: Is it that there is no way to fix knitting mistakes without unraveling back to the them, or is this simply a skill set still to be learned? If it’s the latter, I know a knitting teacher who is part of the worldwide personhood of recovering eating disorder folks. Shall I connect you?
Thank you for your offer, Susanne! It’s lovely. I think for now I am going to put the knitting away, though. It is a skill set to be learned. And I trust I will learn it eventually. But for now, I am going to stick with crochet for a while.
I have the same problem with knitting! Crochet lets you fix your mistakes stitch by stitch…like typing a paper (or blog post!) you can just delete-delete until you get to your mistake. Knitting is much less forgiving!
Absolutely! We had friends over the other day and I told one, “I have 51 stitches on that needle. That’s 51 chances to f*** up.” One loop at a time is so much more manageable.