For everything there is a season...

Kinda cheesy, I know, but I'm terrible at coming up with titles.

I decided to retire as head of the Textile Guild, and I feel really good about it. I've been "done" with it for quite a while, but I kept at it because I knew it would fizzle and die without me, and that outcome was unacceptable to me at the time. I feel differently now.

It's not that I don't care, because I do care, very much indeed. However I feel very serene about letting go of it now. For one thing, I think odds are at least 50-50 that someone will step up and take over, and it won't die without me. If it does go dormant for a while, though, that's okay. I did what I set out to do, and that feels damn good. But now I'm tired, and I need a break.

For the last year or so I've been too busy with SCA stuff to see my knitting/spinning buddies, to go to our regular gatherings, to spin or knit anything for myself or just for fun. I also stopped designing and test-knitting for the Sock-of-the-month club. http://theknitter.com/sockofmonth.html

All my creative juices went elsewhere, and that part of me dried up. Frankly, I had been doing a little too much of it, and it was becoming stressful, so the break was good for me, at first.

Then I went back and discovered how much I missed it, how it rejuvenated me, how important it was to spend time with those particular friends in an atmosphere where there was no judgement, no expectations, no performance.

I got through the obligations I had with the SCA for the end of the year - somehow I got it all done and aquitted myself well, but now *it* had ceased to be fun. I turned back to my knitting friends and found renewed energy and enthusiasm, and a connection that nurtures me.

That is why I am retiring from the Guild. Too much of a good thing is no longer good. It's time for a break.