Dreams don't die

I can't remember being this motivated and excited. There's so many thoughts rushing through my mind right now I can hardly keep up with them! Couple that with trying to type them out... well, we'll see what we get.

I love knitting. And crochet, for that matter. These two things have provided me with more fun and learning than anything else in my entire life. Three years into it, and I'm just starting to unwrap the unending gift that is the art of knitting. And that's just what it is: a gift. It is vast, colorful, timeless, beautiful, a treasure, and loads of fun. It is challenging, rewarding, soft, warm, and a companion. I know now I will never leave it. I will undoubtedly spend the rest of my life exploring this craft, learning more and more as the years go on.

This truly is a revelation. I'm a graphic designer by trade. But to be honest, it is not my passion. I told Victor earlier today that for me, graphic design is like playing the flute in middle school. I never had to try very hard, but I was still 1st chair for three of my four years there. I find my work now to be much the same. I feel a sense of duty to give these organizations something genuinely great to promote their efforts, but there is no passion. I just want to do something more girly! What motivates my designs is duty, which is alright, but I have been so starved for passion and girly-ness lately. (Just on the work front, mind you!) ;) As a woman, especially a woman of many emotions (to which my dear husband can readily attest) it is hard to keep designing when you don't "feel it".

And here, for three years now, have been my ever-faithful knitting needles, sitting cozy in a corner, waiting for me to come pick them up and escape with them to the recesses of my dreams and imagination. When I knit, I escape. Ask anyone, when I'm knitting, all is well. I am at peace (don't I sound like such a hippie??) :P But it's true! It is truly a woman's craft. It is my craft. And today, just now, it hit me: I can make a career out of this. But how? Why? Where do you start? How will you pay for it? - there are tons of questions. But I'm ready to take them on. And I'm ready to design things that are outside of the advertising arena. I want to be more of the artist I see when I'm dreaming!

Never before have I loved something I do so much. I've told so many people that graphic design is my passion. I just knew that if I wanted badly enough for it to be true, it would be. The passion isn't growing - the frustration is. I like it, and I like what I produce, but that's all. I just like it. This isn't a marriage or even a relationship. I have no obligations to graphic design, despite the fact I've been telling my self I do, that it's where I am, where I'm going, and what I'll be doing forever. I'm free to leave! I'm free to chase my dreams! Do I spend my spare time researching ways to better my design? New trends? What the big dogs are designing? No. I knit. I read knitting books. I go to the library to learn more about...knitting. I spend countless hours reading about hand-dyed fibers, where they come from, what the people who make them are like, where to go to learn even more - this is where I spend my time. I am finding myself more and more detached from my design work and more and more attached to my knitting. But you know, it could be tied to the fact that I'm not designing things that interest me personally. When I knit, I knit what I want to knit.

This is a dangerous post, I know. No doubt people who employ me will read this, but it's about time I take a big step towards what I want to do. Otherwise, I might end up in my 40's with a family who wonders why I'm so distant and a job I hate - wondering what life would be like had I just pursued my passions while I still had the chance. Dreams don't die. Initiative does. And while I have both, I can't stand here and do nothing.

Victor and I are so poor right now. But we are both chasing after the things that make us feel alive. We have our dreams, we have initiative and we certainly have each other. And through all of this, the good Lord still provides. I think He thinks we're on the right track.

Wow, that's a load off.