2020. A Heck of a Year.
Warning: This is a very long post covering a multitude of heavy subjects. Please consider yourself warned.
Well, 2021 doesn’t seem to be much better.
In the midst of the craziest time most of us have ever lived through, Bookerworx, like most, has had to adapt and overcome. Danika had to (temporarily) step away from sewing/teaching for a plethora of reasons, but did stay creative. Let me explain:
Moving
In 2019, the hubs and I decided to move for numerous reasons. We were renting the home we were in and wanted to get out of NY state for various purposes. We wanted to relocate fully, but had several responsibilities that we couldn’t leave quite yet. We decided to move in to my mother’s house in the interim, while we figured out where we were going to end up….thinking maybe we’d build something. It was supposed to be a temporary move…sort of like a five year plan to get out. Due to lots of logistically problems, we ended up not actually starting to move until December 2020. Happily, we are now finally moved in completely. This also included moving the Bookerworx Studio. (UGH!) Easily, 90% of the Studio is in storage currently. (More about this later) But, Bookerworx finally is set up with a space to work. It’s not perfect, by any means, but it’s set up and it functions. Mavis, the Bernina, spent the evenings happily purring away on the current project for the last few days. It was hard to get back, but it was good to actually “do.” During the move, I ramped up the graphic design side of Bookerworx. (I still need to pay the bills!) My graphic design only needs my computer, so it was a bit more accessible throughout the move.
Other Work
As you may or may not know, the husband and I are what he likes to refer to as “multi-preneurs.” He means we have a lot of businesses. I just think we work too much. lol. We’ve been very busy with some of those companies, and others were completely stalled due to the pandemic….but, alas, most of Bookerworx was pushed slightly to the side burner (not quite the back burner.) Sewing and instruction was definitely pushed to the side, although not fully, but again, the graphic design leg of Bookerworx was and is going stronger than it ever has. Adapt and overcome, right?
Pandemic
The Pandemic was and still is a horrid and unbelievably impossible crisis to overcome. We were affected, as many were, with the loss of loved ones. The horror of this pandemic also caused other challenges: fear, depression, lack of supplies, closures, lockdowns, and general strife. I’m not going to be redundant, but the pandemic added (and is still adding) several layers of horrors to every day life.
Grief
As mentioned, the pandemic did indeed take loved ones away from us. My grandmother, “Babci,” passed away last May. She was living in a local Senior Residence that was, for reasons I’m not going to get into on this platform at all, stricken very early in the pandemic. From all reports, most, if not all, of the residents were infected and many succumbed. The first reported pandemic death in our County was from this residence. My grandmother did not deserve the death she had. She was moved to hospital, then to a nursing home that was horrid, then transferred after an insane amount of effort to another facility….too little, too late. She was only there for about a week before she was hospitalized again and then succumbed to the sepsis caused by the lack of care she had received at the post-hospital rehab facility. What does this have to do with anything Bookerworx? Everything in the world. My grandmother and my mother are the reason I sew. I learned from a very early age to sew and spent hundreds of hours watching them and learning everything I could. My grandmother was an incredible artist and she worked in numerous media. She was a brilliant painter and also a quilter. She went to school for Dressmaking and was an incredible, albeit stubborn, person. My grandfather passed only about five months before her. I know they are together again, but it sure as hell doesn’t make it any easier. The hole in my heart that they have left grows daily and I will forever miss them. This was definitely a very large hurdle to get over with my desire to sew. I have not fully passed the hurdle yet…..and I don’t know if I ever will. I’m sure in the months to come I will discuss this much more.
A New Normal
We aren’t back to normal. We keep our habits to the same tier of safety as we did during what was supposed to be the two week lock down. Call us crazy, but that’s what we’re comfortable with. We go to the grocery store, the hardware store and that’s pretty much it. If I can’t buy it online, I don’t buy it. I haven’t been to a restaurant in NY to sit and eat in 18 months. (We support our local spots with takeout and curbside, though! That’s one perk I’ll admit the pandemic had……lot’s of places that never dreamed of doing takeout started and are still going strong. Thank you for that restaurant owners. We love you!) This also means no in-person Sewing Instruction, no Quilts of Valor Meetings and no outreach. Has this effected Bookerworx? Absolutely. But, sometimes you need a time to pause one thing so you can focus on others…..so maybe it was meant to be. Thank God I had the graphic design leg of Bookerworx to still function.
Mental Health
As mentioned previously, the pandemic has added these multiple layers of terror to everyday life. Grief, Stress, Anxiety, Depression, Fear, a constant loop of Survival Mode just to name a few. Let’s also add to the mix a disruption in routine, requiring the mental capacity to create new routines. Or how about the Stress of “you MUST use your time wisely and be productive!!”, not just try to survive….I believe that people sometimes function like computers. I know, I know, hear me out on this one: We only have so much RAM. Certain things take up a ton of it, and sometimes we find ourselves so stretched that we can’t operate properly. We get sluggish because we are so bogged down by (often useless) data that just takes up too much RAM. We need to get our hard drives cleaned, reboot and de-frag our RAM to function properly and efficiently. When you figure out how to do this, please let me know. lol. Certain things you have to spend this precious RAM on no matter what……some of these things are good and some are just necessary evils: you need to pay bills, figure out what to feed yourself, ensure your relationships are being tended to, etc. All of this takes RAM…some more than others. No matter what you do, you’ll always have this baseline operating RAM that’s always going to be used. Figuring out what’s extra and what’s not necessary is the trick. And sometimes, you have to delete (maybe not delete…..maybe just pull off the hard drive onto a thumb drive until you can get back to it) a file or two that you thought was important because you have to. This is how I feel mental health works. You only have the mental capacity to deal with so much at a time and you really need to know that that’s okay. Mental Health Care is exactly that. It’s Health Care. I have no qualms stating that I think everyone would benefit from real Mental Health Care and I think it’s no different than going to your GP annually, or your dentist, or your chiropractor. Again, this is not the platform for me to get more detailed on my opinion of this, but I think everyone would benefit. Anyway, I’m going to pass one amazing piece of information along to you all to help you deal with your slow computers and lack of mental capacity to handle things. Every one of us is juggling a lot of balls. We’re always told to keep ALL of those balls in the air. You know what? Sometimes, you have to drop a few balls. SO, which ones do you drop?? Well, let’s look at those more closely….As we do, we find that some are actually glass, and if we drop those, they’ll shatter and will never be able to be repaired. Look closer, some are ping pong balls, some are bowling balls and some are tennis balls. If we drop a ping pong ball, it’s going to bounce everywhere, but we can find it later and pick it back up….no big deal. The Bowling Balls? Well, please watch out for your toes if you drop those, and pray that your floor can handle it, but we’ll be able to grab that later, too. The Tennis Balls? Good luck finding it after the dog buries it…..no, but seriously, you get the point. You can drop a few balls every once in awhile. It’ll all be okay. And remember, they change daily and for everyone they are different, something that is glass today, may be a bowling ball tomorrow, so you can decide what the priorities are and which you can do away with.
Self Care
I believe I stepped away from Sewing with Bookerworx for a little while because of self care. I needed to prioritize my To Do List in order to function at such a high level of anxiety. I’m glad to be back, and I hope to share this journey with you all. As I said before, I am certainly not over the Grief Hurdle and I don’t know if I’ll ever be. I still have my passion….if anything, I have more passion, but it’s getting myself to actually do it that’s the trouble. It’s not laziness or anything like that…..it’s lack of RAM…..
Moving Forward
There will be many more discussions on this subject in the next few weeks and I would love to share some of the things that have been in the works. Right now, in order to move forward, I’ve been giving myself very small, attainable goals. (I’m going to sew this small stack of fabric pieces to that stack and even if that’s only a half an hour of work, that’s okay.) I have pushed back deadlines (tennis balls) and I’m not even allowing myself to worry about those right now. My clients (glass balls) completely understand and that’s awesome. My husband (glass ball) is supportive and loving. My dog (glass ball) is cuddly and adorable. Tomorrow’s goal is to tell you all about a fabric box I made….so that’s your preview of what’s to come. lol. I will continue to move forward for myself and my loved ones. For all of you out there: I love you and thank you for your support…and I promise to talk primarily about sewing in my future posts.