How I Deal With My Social Anxiety…

I don’t get out much. No, seriously, I really don’t get out much. Sometimes it’s because I’m just happy being at home with all my things and with all my kids. Most of the time it’s simply because I have nowhere else I really care to go (and no extra money to spend anyway). Sometimes it’s because I have social anxiety.  When I think about going out I freak out internally. I begin telling myself all the reasons why I don’t need to go out. I procrastinate having to go to the supermarket. “We still have one gallon of milk left. That should last us for at least two days if we’re careful,” I tell myself.  Better yet is when I can convince my husband to go for me so I don’t have to get out. He thinks it’s just because I don’t want to go myself, and I suppose that’s partially true. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go outside and deal with people and traffic and lines and, oh my god, I might have to actually talk to people.

I suppose that’s why I like needlework. It’s a solo enterprise. I choose the patterns, the colors of yarn, the type of yarn, and then I put it all together and make something out of it. No one else is involved in any way other than the salespeople at the craft stores and most of the time I can avoid them. (Except for the checkout person…craft stores haven’t adjusted yet to the new self-serve registers.) And this is where my whole anxiety issues tend to make out like I’m a liar. As solo a hobby as knitting or crocheting or any solo hobby is, for the most part other people are involved. The whole reason I knit and crochet and sew is so I can make things and give them to others. I will happily go to the craft store for no other reason than to buy the materials I need to make something for someone else simply so I can see the look of joy on their face when they truly love what I’ve made. I will talk to salespeople if I need something the store is out of and I will do it with no anxiety whatsoever. Why? Because I am doing several things I love: creating and giving.

The reason I am telling all of you this is because I had to do something that always gives me the willies. I had to meet new people, always a crapshoot at the best of times. You see, a very dear friend came overseas from England to visit. I’ve been making things, surprise things, for her for an entire year. I never do seem to manage to ship things out to people and I think I have finally figured out why. It’s the hugs. You don’t get those when you ship packages. No, you have to imagine them, and while I have a very good one, my imagination falls far short of the real thing in this instance. And Lizzi gives some of the best ones. The thing about her visit though is that there were three new-to-me people this time in the group that usually gets together when Lizzi is in town. I knew about these new women about a week before the lunch date, and yet, when the day came I knew I would freak out and try to talk myself out of going. So I did what anyone else might not do. I decided to make things for the people I didn’t know in an attempt to calm myself the frakk down. Besides, it was LIZZI! And Beth and Mandi, two other fabulous women I’ve gotten to know and love and I always make things for them as well. There was no way I was going to miss seeing any of them because who knew when I’d get to again. And so, two weeks before the set date I decided to make All. The. Hats. And one mandala vest.

Here in no particular order is what I made, minus a few hats I forgot to take pictures of:

What you see are potholders there in the upper left, a Gingerbread Girl hat (still not over the cuteness of this), a “She Persisted” hat, messy bun hats, a semi-colon tattoo hat, the mandala vest in Bernat Pop’s Planetary colorway, and a bow hat.  I think the thing I love best about crochet is how fast it is. Most of the hats I made in an hour. The Gingerbread hat took me about two hours because it had separate pieces for the cheeks and bow and “frosting”. The mandala vest, again, takes about a week. Still, I think even I’m impressed by how many things I made in two weeks. Consider all the things you have to do in a day like eat and sleep, bathroom things,  and taking care of kids and then sit down and try to make about 15 hats and one vest in 14 days. And that doesn’t factor in that knitting takes longer than crochet. A simple hat in crochet takes an hour or less. The same hat done in knit can take about three or more hours. There’s definitely something to be said for instant gratification. Fortunately, I don’t mind waiting for something a little more detailed and challenging which knitting provides.

Obviously I survived meeting the new people. And I’m glad I didn’t talk myself out of going like I was trying to the morning of the lunch. I should say “lunches” because we ended up meeting twice that week. The women were really wonderful and truly nice and I have three new friends in the small tribe I’m in because of Lizzi. And, they were caught unawares by my handmade gifts and they really liked the hats. I just figured everyone can use a hat. 🙂

The rest of my weekend was spent making two more hats because I simply could not resist the patterns…

How can anyone resist such cute and awesome patterns? I mean really…my little Tornado loved the blue hat so much he stole it away as soon as I had the last yarn ends sewn in.

Also, thanks to Lizzi and Co. I’m very seriously considering an Etsy shop now. If you’ve got one, I’d love any information you can give, pros or cons.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled Monday. Have a good one. 😉

❤ Jesi