Years ago, when my first book came out, I eagerly some reviews and instantly realized my error. When I was a teenager and worrying a lot about what people were thinking of me, I remember my mother assuring me that they were as concerned with what I was up to, as I was with them. In fact — most days… none.
This rather comforting belief system worked well for quite some time — right up until I read those reviews, in fact. When I started reading what people thought about my writing, I realized that this had the power to dilute my ability to write pretty quickly. I have learned that reviews are not my friend, that they close my mind to writing possibilities, and that in order to not care what people are thinking, I need to not know what they are thinking, at least about my writing.
That there is one of the biggest lies ever presented to me in my life. Of course you have to care what other people think, say and feel. I know that the last several years have been challenging for most of us — and I am not going to posit that our family has had the hardest time of all, I am certain that it is not accurate.
I am going to say though that for a recent talk I gave I did some research on trauma. Trauma is a persons emotional response to terrible experiences, and is the result of events — any events, being more than their nervous system can process at once. Two knitters in the exact circumstances with the same amount of yarn will have very different responses. Also — the pandemic was very different for each of us. Some of us kept our jobs and were at least financially secure during the pandemic, and some of us lost our jobs and were financial endangered or threatened.
Some of us have been isolated with people who are sweet and support us, some of us were forced to shelter in place with people who were unkind or abusive and some of us you darling hearts were quarantined with teenagers.
