The irony is not lost on me that I am now entranced with several summery tops just as we hit a span of cool weather such that if I had finished one of the many long sleeve sweaters I have been working on, I could actually wear them. And here we are and it's still summer - summer, sumer, summer - and yet we are talking about NaNo again and what to do for preparation and all that. And one person suggested the the NaNo folks were on to something when they said use NaNo to start something new rather than trying to dig up something old because if you haven't been working on it there's a reason and trying to force it is a recipe for disaster.
And in thinking about the wisdom of this, I came to a similar thought about knits.
One of the things I have tried to share and believe and all that is that there are jobs and roommates and friends that don't work out. But all of that teaches you more about who you are and what you really want, so it is valuable in that respect. And really, the partially finished projects hidden in nooks and crannies about the apartment have something to teach me. Sometimes a pattern fits a mood but the mood passes. Sometimes something is so simple or so complex it requires a specific mindset, that hasn't yet returned. Sometimes sleeves are boring. But sometimes you have to put up with the boring so that you can get to the end. And sometimes I misplace the pattern, which says less about my knitting desires but a bit about my need to find a better system for caring for my patterns. So these unfinished objects aren't signs that I'm a flitterbug or lazy or a bad knitter. They are signs of my knitting journey, as I learn that stockinette will only hold my attention for so long no matter how cool the yarn is, or that things that are knit on fours are subject to knitting black holes in my knit country or just that if it requires complex blocking or finishing it may sit there for quite a while.