The thinking of it

We  have a Step Challenge at work...Step To It...or something like that.  We have teams and we calculate how many steps we get each week and the winning team gets something really special.  I'm looking forward to competing in my step challenge because I've needed the excuse to get out and walk...the weather hasn't been keeping me from it...just plain and simple laziness (and the tightness of my pants is beginning to tell me that I can't eat like I did when I was pulling all the time).

At any rate, that's the long explanation for saying that I went for a 40 minute walk after work today.  That's a lot of time with myself to think.  To not be distracted by hobbies or tv or Pearl (sometimes even Zora is cute enough to keep me from having to think).

I won't say I'm avoiding...that wouldn't be quite right and would indicate some sort of purposeful action NOT TO think...I've just been through so much recently and grown so much and changed so much...and have new responsibilities at work (that I love, btw, but they are new and I am learning) that I've simply stopped thinking about things...about the divorce.  About the pain I felt in July when it all fell apart.

But today, on my walk, I had to think about something and what I thought about is this:

"I'm not sure why it hurt so badly"

I can still feel the shock of it and remember how the emotional pain hurt me physically.  How I couldn't eat for weeks...the physical act of chewing food made me want to throw up.  How I couldn't stop crying for days and my hands shook so badly that I couldn't knit or crochet.

I certainly remember all of that, but now...today...as I was walking around in my beautiful neighborhood, I honestly couldn't remember why it hurt so badly.

It's a testament, that thought, to how much I've grown to love myself.  That scared, sad, lonely, miserable girl who was married for so long...she didn't love herself.  She loved HIM.  She loved others, but she didn't take the time to get to know herself and realize what a beautiful person she is.  She thought that by living through others she would find fulfillment.  It's what I was taught, how I was raised to believe.

Loving myself.  Doing for myself...that was selfish.  But what I've learned instead on this long hard journey is that I'm worth taking care of...and by taking care of myself I can become valued by others...but if I'm not, that's ok because I know my own worth and find fulfillment there.

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Today's picture is of the cowl I finished last week (I think it was 4 days start to finish) using the March club color for the Rockin' Sock Club: Gran's Kitchen.  The pattern is 1950s Ice Box Cowl.

I love the cowl...the yarn is amazingly gorgeous.  The stitch pattern on the cowl is very pretty.  But there's a design flaw that makes it curl in on itself and that's disappointing.  I'm not the only one who's had this problem...but I won't unknit it to fix it.  I'll just spread it out and show folks when they ask :)