Freeing myself

                       "Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking.... into the future...”
                                                                  -- Steve Miller

Oh, you know how it is.  You start a project with the best of intent, with passion, with fever, with fancy dreams, and then along comes a steam train, pulling a million cars, preventing you from crossing those tracks; preventing you from crossing that finish line!

So I have to ask myself, will this be the year?  Will this be the year I finish the freeform sweater/jacket I started for my daughter a few years ago?  What is preventing me from finishing it?  All I need to do is add on a few more motifs and then crochet the border.  Really, I ask myself, what is preventing me from finishing this project?

As I look at my daughter, really study her features, I can see what it is.  I can see that it is time itself that is preventing me from finishing it.  Somewhere deep inside I think that if I don't finish this project that my daughter will remain at the age she was when I first started the project.  Haven't we all, at one time or another, wished we could capture a moment and hang onto it forever?

When I first started the project, my daughter's face still had that "toddler" look -- rounded features, tiny hands.  Now her face is starting to mature a bit, looking like that Third Grader that she'll be this fall.  Her fingers are becoming long and slender -- able to control her own crochet hook like a pro! 

I know deep down that I can never capture her, keep her, at the age she is now.  But sometimes when I look at a project the memories all come flooding back.  The first loose tooth, her first haircut, her first day in Kindergarten.

And maybe this would be a good thing for me to do this weekend.  To take the project out and set to finishing it.  To freeing myself, my project, and my daughter and let time keep on ticking into the future while enjoying the moment while it happens.