Short timer

Although we have no prospective buyers for our house, we have been starting to sort through all of our possessions in preparation to eventually move. We really have only started with James' specific items, since he will be packing up and moving ahead of Aidan and me to New York. I am waiting until he has left to launch a full-scale attack on the closets in the house.

In the meantime, I did some email contacts clean up this past week. It was liberating and sobering all at the time to delete from my contacts those people located locally with whom I tried to form a friendship, but failed miserably. I was amazed at how many names I deleted, names of people with whom I thought would become friends. I was astoundingly wrong in so, so many cases.

When I do leave here, there is probably only one person with whom I will keep in contact and whom I consider to be a friend. Four years in Georgia and just one friend, and a few good acquaintances. Sad.

Living here has dealt a severe blow to my self-esteem. I have never had any difficulty making or keeping friends wherever I have lived. I have gone out of my way here to seek out potential friends, to get together with them, to share interests...but in every case except the one, I have been rebuffed.

It is impossible for me to not take it personally and wonder what is wrong with me, why people here do not like me. I am no closer to an answer now than when I first started asking why. What is it that I am lacking? Do I live in the wrong neighborhood, drive the wrong car, look or sound the wrong way? Is it my opinions, my politics, my tastes, my clothes? Is it that I am not enough or, as I suspect, too much?

So I guess I don't care anymore. I have mentally checked out of Hooter County Georgia and am merely occupying space until I can get where I belong and where I can make some friends. In some ways, a weight has been lifted from my shoulders: I no longer care whether I meet people I like nor do I care if they like me. After all, I am just a short timer.

Gifts in the mail

Since last Friday, I have received not one, not two, but three lovely gifts in the mail from fellow knitters. Last Friday, my talented friend Laura from the Motherhood Later group sent me one of her awesome felted vessels:


Isn't it cool? Laura is the person who suggested that we send RAKs to each other in the Motherhood Later group to celebrate our group's anniversary, and she told me that she had me in mind when she made the suggestion. And what is really cool is that she is the person to whom I sent my anniversary RAK!

Yesterday, a nice, soft envelope from my friend Kelli was waiting in the mailbox. She sent me a copy of a pattern (a free pattern, people - no copyright laws violated); I had admired a market bag that someone had made for her and she tracked down the pattern. She also enclosed three skeins of Nashua Handknits Painted Forest in a luscious Jewels colorway, not to make the market bag but perhaps a warm hat for those cold New York winters ahead! It was so kind and so typical of Kelli to send such a thoughtful and unexpected gift.

Then today another envelope arrived, this one from Florida. It was from a person in the Handmade RAK group and she made a Pokemon card holder for Aidan in his (current) favorite color of orange:


As you can see, he is delighted with the card case! Let's just hope it cuts down on the number of stray Pokemon cards that I find throughout the house.

Three gifts in one week, which makes me wonder: are knitters the most generous people on earth? Or do I just happen to know wonderful people? Yes, and yes!