Can you Love Something Too Much?

These days my kids are grown and gone, my husband still works full time.  I'm at home with George and Gracie.  We live in a rural area and I can't even see my neighbors, nor can they see us.  We live about 25 minutes from the closest town (small town).  Sometimes I go days without leaving home or seeing another person . . . aside from my husband when he's home.  You might think with all that time alone on my hands that I would be lonely.  But I'm not.

I usually spend a couple of hours in the morning making breakfast, looking at my email, and doing a little housework.  But then I retreat into my sewing room and sew for most of the day.  I have to take a break sometimes because my neck, shoulders, and back start to ache; but otherwise, I'm never happier than when I'm sewing.

I certainly had my days when I worked--a LOT.  When my kids were younger, I spent lots of time with them . . . and lots of time driving them here and there and waiting while they finished whatever it was they were doing.  I volunteered at their schools, and at five different social service agencies.  Eventually, I added graduate school to my list of things to do, and that brought a whole other element of craziness to an already busy life.

When I finished graduate school, I had a head full of fresh ideas and ideals.  I worked a job I would have done for free.  In fact, I had done it for free for at least a decade until it occurred to me that I could get paid if I had the proper credentials.  And so I worked very hard for three years collecting them.  Then I got a job I loved and the phrase, "All this fun and they pay me too," took on new meaning.  I almost couldn't get enough of it.  I worked a regular job during the day, and then I was on call to another job overnight.  I was working, literally, around the clock.  That will take its toll on a person after a while, and I am no exception.

So I stopped doing that for the sake of my health and I kind of knocked around for a couple of years trying to find some meaning in my life.  Of course, I love my kids and my husband fiercely, but there has to be more than that--at least for me.  When I took up quilting two years ago, I came at it with the same enthusiasm that I used to have for my job.  I still feel that way.

My sewing room is in the back room of our daylight basement.  It's a nice big room, and I feel lucky to have it.  But it has no natural light.  Sometimes, especially in the summer, I wonder if I'm doing myself a disservice by spending so much of my day in a room under artificial lights.  I think maybe I should get out more.  And I do get out a little bit each day.  I water my potted plants, which takes me about half an hour, and soon we'll be having a new greenhouse delivered.  That will allow me to garden even when the winter rains start to fall.  (And believe me, the rain does fall in Oregon.)  Sometimes when I'm taking a break from sewing, I walk out to the mailbox about a 1/4-mile away on the main road.  But otherwise, I'm happy to spend the rest of the day holed up in my sewing room.

As I'm writing this, it's about the last thing I'll do today except for sewing some more.  It's hard on my hands sometimes, and I'm prevented from doing it.  But most of the time, I'm happy there.  Most of what I make is given away.  Recently, I purchased one of those ladder-type displays for my quilts.  As of yet, it has only two quilts hanging on it--the same two quilts I had when we set it up months ago.  Every quilt I've made since then has gone somewhere else.  It's gratifying to make things for someone I care about and to see their expressions when they receive their gift.  I have one to give away tomorrow when I walk with my best friend.

I wonder what other people think.  Do you spend much of your day quilting?  And if you're too busy for that at this point in your life, do you long to do it?  If you had almost no demands on your time at all, what would you do?  And if you're happy doing something as much as you can, do you ever wonder what you might be missing?