The Woman I Used To Be

There's a certain pressure when blogging to forget your initial purpose and slip into pleasing the audience or risk losing your readers. While I'm not by nature a people pleaser, I occasionally feel a need to perform although I make every attempt to ignore those thoughts when they appear since pleasing everyone is an impossible task. I want blogging to be a way for me to write daily, a platform from which I can be seen and heard, and a point of connection particularly with other creative women.

This blog is about sewing and creativity and life - my life - and the good, the bad, and the ugly of how I live it. While I might wish the blog was less personal, that's not me. I'm a tell it like it is kind of girl. Unless they dig and pry, I will tell just about anybody just about anything especially if it will support and encourage them in some way. I may not want to please but I do want to help which is why as manic as it may seem, my highs and my lows are out there for anyone who cares to take this journey with me.

This is primarily a fashion sewing blog and there may not be any for the next while. I don't know. It's not in me to go for long periods of time without sewing. I get cranky. It's not pretty. That's why this afternoon I am starting a project that I'll tell you about later in the week. It's sewing but it's not fashion sewing because...

... for the first time in decades, I feel the urge to go to the gym, to run on the treadmill, to feel fit and firm and energetic. It could be that all I need to do is lie down, look the other way, and wait for the urge to pass only I've been thinking about it for a few weeks now and the urge hasn't passed. Since these feelings so rarely come around, perhaps I should follow them up and see where that takes me. There's every chance that exercise will improve all sorts of things and not just my jiggle. That said...

... it occurs to me that if I do go and I somehow manage to hang in there long enough, my body will change AND... if my body is going to change... why would I want to sew a whole bunch of clothes now that won't fit me later especially as I have no real purpose for new clothes now - not until I get a job. It's a dilemma. It's quite possible I'll go once and that will be the end of that. We'll see what happens.

On Friday, I finished sewing the blue skirt and when I tried it on, it made me look like a blob. That's not what motivated me to go to the gym, it's just a fact, and I have no idea why. The skirt is a short, knee length, pencil skirt just like several other short, knee length, pencil skirts in my closet. Was it my mood that day? Was it the lack of pantyhose and heels? Was it the ever so slightly shorter length? Was it the fabric factor or the time of the month or the way the sun was shining or how I held my tongue? God only knows. I put it aside. I'll look at that later. I'm not going to let it bother me now.

On Saturday and Sunday, I didn't sew at all. I read two books. One of them - I Feel Great About My Hands - is a compilation of essays by Canadian women all over the age of fifty that was written as a celebration of aging in response to Nora Ephron's book I Feel Bad About My Neck. Books like this make you think about life and aging and who you were and who you are today.

The weekend before last, while I was cleaning out the storage trunk masquerading as a coffee table in the living room, I found the skirt that I wore as part of my going away outfit when Howard and I were married. If you look inside, it's a size 7-8. The waist is 25 1/2". I have no idea what size that is now but it certainly tells you a lot about where vanity sizing has gone in the past thirty years and the fact that I was grossly underweight. I was barely nineteen, 5'2", and 96 pounds. I was too thin. I thought I was fat.

Out of curiosity, and with some difficulty, I slipped the skirt onto Millicent. I had to ease it back and forth and pull down tightly to get it past her shoulders and over her bust. It was touch and go whether it'd come off again without scissors. As you can see, there wasn't a hope of zipping it up. And then...

... I slipped it onto my leg and it's slightly loose on my thigh which means I am almost twice as wide as I used to be. I did not burst into tears. Thirty years ago, I would have but I'm not twenty any more. Thirty years has taught me to put a lot less emphasis on my appearance and a lot more on my character. Thirty years has taught me that I can't control the world by not eating or by overeating. I've learned when and how to let go and even though I struggle at times, those times are fewer and further between than they used to be.

The gift of aging has dimmed my memory. I no longer remember intensely personal battles that consumed my very being day in and day out. For this, I'm grateful. I spend less time regurgitating the past or outlining the future and more time here in the present, the only moment that is real. I've learned to say no.

I realize that not all things are within my control and I'm thankful for that fact - most of the time - even as I wish to control the selling of homes and the acquiring of jobs. Thankfully, I no longer want to rule the world. It was exhausting. I'm not as interested in being the center of attention as I used to be. I still enjoy it but not all the time. I recognize my issues. I'm working on them. I don't expect to succeed. I expect to make progress in my life time.

I rarely waste my time on things I don't want to do and I'm far clearer about what I do want to do.  I've learned to compromise for those I love. I'm more outspoken, more creative, more confident, and less demanding, less critical, less judgemental. I'm far from perfect and yet I'm more wonderful than ever. And I like myself.

I could go on but you get my point. I'm not the woman I used to be. I'm so much more.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - the wisdom of aging