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Lukewarm Tea & Other Disappointments

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A study in moderation, misquotes, and why I still prefer coffee.

When I was younger — young — back when I was still brave enough to actually write in notebooks instead of hoarding them like endangered artefacts, I kept a book of quotes.

Lines I thought were cool, or clever, or profound. You might call them “edgy,” but that wasn’t really a word in the late 1900s. Back then, you could be deep or weird, and I was just a ginger from Liverpool.

On the very first page of that notebook, in my best dramatic handwriting, I wrote a quote I found online. A quote I was convinced was ancient, wise, and philosophical. A quote I believed Socrates himself had penned, probably while staring moodily into the middle distance.

It went like this:

“Moderation? It’s mediocrity, fear and confusion in disguise. It’s the devil’s dilemma. It’s neither doing nor not doing. It’s the wobbling compromise that makes no one happy. Moderation is for the bland, the apologetic, for the fence-sitters of the world afraid to take a stand. It’s for those afraid to laugh or cry, for those afraid to live or die. Moderation… is lukewarm tea, the devil’s own brew.”
— Not Socrates. Dan Millman.

At twelve years old, reading that? I thought I was the coolest thing alive.

I didn’t understand half of it, but it sounded intense, and I was absolutely certain a Greek philosopher had written it on a stone tablet or whatever.

Finding out years later that it wasn’t Socrates but Dan Millman, and that he wrote it in a book sold at Waterstones, was… humbling.

I’ve never read the book, but the quote stuck with me anyway. Partly because it’s dramatic in a way my teenage self adored, and partly because moderation actually is hard.

The Present Problem

Cut to now: a grown adult allegedly capable of responsibility, staring down the holiday season with the earnest hope of saving for an actual trip away. A real break. A proper escape. Something Future Me might thank Present Me for, if Future Me ever exists and isn’t replaced by an equally chaotic upgrade.

I want to be moderate. I do. I want to budget sensibly, make good choices, cook actual meals that don’t come in cardboard, and greet January with both memories and money. But moderation is so much harder than it sounds. Especially when December hits and executive function dissolves like a sugar cube in hot water.

This is the season where everything conspires to grind you down until you give in to hedonism. Suddenly every advert, every menu, every streetlight is whispering, “Go on. Treat yourself. You’ve earned it.”

And maybe I have. But treating myself often means opening a food delivery app with the resigned sigh of someone who knows very well that this is sabotage, but will do it anyway, because chewing joylessly on carrots doesn’t feel like survival.

The alternative isn’t noble, though. When I’m not giving in to hedonistic takeaways, I swing hard in the other direction.

Asceticism.
Punishment.
The monastic discipline of someone who has confused “stability” with “penance.”

Rice.
Instant ramen.
Vague resentment.

But it’s not balance. It’s a performance of self-control so dramatic that even my teenage “Socrates wrote that” self would roll her eyes.

And that’s the real problem: it is so easy to live at the extremes. To be all feast or famine, all indulgence or austerity.

Moderation requires something far more challenging:
making a reasonable decision when you’re tired, overwhelmed, overstimulated, and the algorithm is dangling a limited-time dessert pizza at you like a hostage negotiation.

A pull quote on dark green background "But it’s not balance. It’s a performance of self-control" The word performance is highlighted in bright pink

The Pivot

It turns out the extremes, the feasting and the fasting, are easy because they’re emotional. They give you something to inhabit. A mood. A story. A posture.

Extravagance says:
“Screw it, you deserve joy.”

Asceticism says:
“Suffer now, thrive later.”

Moderation says:
“Make a sensible choice.”

And honestly? I hate it here.

Because moderation requires presence. Attention. Consistency. The kind of quiet, ongoing effort that never gets applause and never generates dopamine.

A pull quote on a sage green background. "Boring us hard. Especially for a brain that craved crescendos."

It’s showing up for a future self I don’t always believe in. It’s making decisions that feel small and mundane and unheroic.
It’s choosing not to dramatically overspend and not to dramatically punish myself for wanting things.

Moderation is boring, and boring is hard — especially for a brain that craves narrative arcs and emotional crescendos.

But boring is also where the real life happens.
Not the fantasy life, not the meltdown life… the actual life I have to live day by day. The life I’ll be living in five years, ten years, the one I’m squinting at in those pension calculators. The life where taking a holiday requires saving slowly, repeatedly, without drama.

Moderation is the tiny bridge between now and the future I keep insisting I want.

The Release

So I’ll practice moderation.
For now. For as long as I can manage.

Until, inevitably, extravagance or asceticism seduces me again… because they’re dramatic, and messy, and far more fun.

But I’ll keep trying. I’ll keep saving. I’ll keep choosing the middle path even when it tastes like nothing.

Moderation is lukewarm tea, and I’ll drink it…
but I’d rather have coffee.

Learning to Be Relaxed

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Tonight I am, against all odds, relaxed.*

Not “scrolling while pretending to unwind.” Not “strategically multitasking rest.” Just… sitting. Knitting. Listening to music. Existing.

And because my brain can’t leave well enough alone, I went to find a better word for how I’m feeling.** Something more poetic, more dramatic, more me. I opened a thesaurus. It said: relaxed.

No italics, no fanfare. Just the word itself, sitting there like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

The Discovery

If this is what relaxed actually feels like, I’ve been doing it wrong most of my life.

I used to think relaxation was something you earned. A reward you got once the to-do list was vanquished and the inbox quieted down. But rest never arrived that way. I’d tick everything off, sit down, and immediately invent a new list. My brain treats stillness like a threat; if it’s quiet, something must be wrong.

So instead, I chased productive calm. The kind where you’re “resting” but also meal-planning, doom-scrolling, and mentally preparing for the next 72 hours. It looks like downtime. It isn’t.

The Practice

Somewhere in the last six months, between shared kitchens and quiet evenings, I stumbled into this new kind of calm. The small, low-effort, no-explanation kind.

No scented candles. No meditation apps telling me to breathe. Just music, yarn, and enough mental space to stop narrating my every thought like another of my podcasts that no one subscribed to.

I’ve also been sober through all of this. Not in a manifesto way, more in a “let’s see what happens if I actually feel my feelings” way. Turns out, I don’t need wine*** to be introspective. Just wool and Wi-Fi.

And I’ve been med-free too, so really, a totally relaxed person with cPTSD is breaking the million-to-one odds here. Someone call Guinness.****

There’s something deeply strange about feeling your nervous system unclench for what might be the first time in years. It’s not euphoric. It’s not cinematic. It’s just… relaxing. Ordinary. Like slipping into a bath that’s finally the right temperature.

The Joke

I always expect tension to tap me on the shoulder. My brain whispers, Shouldn’t you be doing something?
And I usually answer, probably.

That’s how you know you’re relaxing: by the low-level guilt that you’ve kicked your responsibilities into the long grass.

But not this time. This time, there’s just an unfamiliar feeling of quiet. One I had to slowly, silently move through the long grass to glimpse before it startled and fled.

The Aggressively Peaceful Bit

It’s funny. I’ve spent years chasing chaos, noise, novelty; things that make me feel alive. Turns out, being alive feels a lot like this too. The quiet, unremarkable kind of joy that doesn’t need documenting*****, scheduling, or justifying.

So yeah. I’m relaxed.

Apparently, that’s a whole new skill. And I think I might commit to this hobby for a while.

*Well not right now, sorry to spoil the illusion, but right now I’m on an early train, wishing I’d packed earlier and gotten more sleep. But that’s another story.

**If I’m honest, the only reason I even thought to look it up is because I was trying to document it. That’s what alexithymia does: it makes me name feelings so I can recognise them later. I wanted a word to pin this one down.


***I never liked wine. It just has good alliteration with wool and Wi-Fi.


****I never liked stout either.

*****Ssshhh, I know this is documenting. Leave me to my fun.

Six Months of Quiet Company

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This week marks six months of living alone… well not exactly, but also kinda.
I share a house with five other people. We cross paths in the kitchen, politely ignore each other’s laundry, and share an unspoken agreement that we don’t discuss the quality of bathroom singing.

It’s not solitude exactly, more like a soft coexistence.

The Middle Ground

After nearly twenty years of living with partners and kids and noise, this has been my quiet middle ground. I still hear footsteps, laughter, the occasional blender. It’s reassuring. There’s life here, just not mine to manage.

I’m probably the oldest person in the house by a good stretch. Everyone else has energy that hums, it’s just a different frequency. One I can admire from a time worn path.

I joke that I’m the household cryptid: sightings are rare, but the evidence of my existence (mugs, tea, the occasional scent of toast) is undeniable. But I make the joke only to myself, gods forbid I engage in conversation… I have a spooky reputation to maintain.

The Comfort

It’s oddly comforting. I can be social on my own terms and vanish without explanation. There’s no loneliness in it, just the small luxury of choosing my own volume.

Six months in, I’ve realised this is the kind of independence that suits me. Not isolation, not reinvention, just steady, ordinary living.

The Aggressively Peaceful Bit

There’s something deeply satisfying about being a quiet part of other people’s world. The house hums. The lights shift. Someone else’s playlist seeps through the walls. And I’m here making coffee, answering messages from my people, and feeling, finally, at home.

Because peace doesn’t always come with silence. Sometimes it’s the sound of someone else’s blender at 7 a.m. and the soft, defiant joy of knowing you’re building a life that’s aggressively peaceful.

Returning to Routine

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Adventures are thrilling, but they’re also loud. For now, I’m choosing the softer kind of noise: kettles boiling, washing machines humming, toast crunching…

The Highs

August was incredible. Big trips, bright moments, the kind of days that deserve capital letters: The Fringe. The Theme Park. The New Head Office.

There were late nights and loud mornings, too many people crammed into too little space, gig timetables that felt like puzzles and the dizzying joy of being somewhere that wasn’t my own room. Chaos at its finest.

But here’s the truth: they’ve also wrung me out. Amazing, yes. Exhausting, absolutely.

The Craving

Now, all I want is routine. The boring kind. The quiet kind. The kind where I know what Monday looks like, where Tuesday isn’t a surprise party, and where the biggest decision of the week is whether I eat pasta or rice for dinner.

Give me predictable mornings. Coffee in the same mug, at the same table, at the same time and not having to remember what loyalty app I should be using. Give me getting all my chores done by Thursdays, so that knitting on the sofa comes stress-free on Fridays, and all without having to calculate train times and Uber journeys.

Routine is knowing when the bins go out. It’s having a go-to mug for Monday mornings and that the only Friday night outfit I’ll need is a sports bra and gym leggings. It’s deciding how many episodes of Alien: Earth I can rewatch before bed without sabotaging the next day. It’s the hum of the washing machine. The kettle clicking off, steady as a metronome. The too-bright supermarket lights that feel oddly comforting, in the same way that everything in the rest of the supermarket is just where you expect it to be.

The Balance

Chaos is brilliant. It’s also loud. It demands too much, too often. Adventure is a drum solo: dazzling, thrilling, impossible to ignore. Routine is the rhythm section underneath, steady and grounding. The part that makes the music work.

I sat at my desk the other day and realised what I wanted wasn’t another adventure. It was a week where the most dramatic moment was the Google reminder for me to get my laundry out of the dryer.

The Rest

So yes, I’ve had some amazing weekends.

But right now? I want a week where nothing happens. Where the highlight is an empty laundry basket or a perfectly buttered piece of toast. Where the biggest problem is I’ve run out of almond milk or the butter being too cold to spread.

Maybe that’s the secret: adventure isn’t special without the contrast. The parties, the trips, the chaos, they need routine to bounce against.

I’ll take boredom while it lasts. Fireworks always find their way back in, whether I ask for them or not.

Sometimes the coffee. Sometimes the axe.

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On favourite cafes, small rituals and the quests that begin with a cup in hand.

The Nearest Cup

My favourite coffee shop isn’t just the closest, though that helps. It’s genuinely good. It sits a few minutes from my front door, right by the train station, perfectly placed between home and the town centre. I like to think I chose it for the beans or the vibe, but the truth is simpler: it’s on the way, and it’s there when I need it.

An americano in a pink cup with an almond croissant on a white plate, places on a speckled cafe table

The Atmosphere

From the outside, it doesn’t look like much. A handful of tables, a cute mirror sign, the steady shuffle of people coming and going. But it has its own rhythm. You hear the roll of suitcase wheels on the pavement, the chatter of office staff escaping their cubicles, the run club on some Saturday morning. The hiss of the steam wand cutting through it all, like they’re trying to take us back to the golden age of train travel. And inside, time does slow down just enough. Long enough to take a breath, to sip, to watch the world hurry past without you.

The Coffee Itself

And the coffee? It’s good. Not just good-for-a-train-station, but actually good. Smooth espresso shots, that taste like someone cared about getting it right. It’s the kind of place you could recommend to a friend and not have to apologize afterwards. Which makes it even better that it’s mine: close enough to be casual, but good enough to feel like a treat.

And then there are the pastries. Real pastries, not the sad shrink-wrapped kind that taste like regret. I’m talking about almond croissants dusted with sugar, the kind that leave a little trail of flakes across the table like edible confetti. Pair one with a cup and suddenly errands feel like indulgence. Coffee in one hand, pastry in the other and even I will concede the day doesn’t look half as daunting.

The Ritual

What I love most is that this place has become my starting line. The stop that marks the beginning of whatever comes next. Some days it’s just errands, other days it’s train journeys or something bigger, but the coffee is always the ritual that kicks it off.

It’s my Rivendell of coffee: a pause before the quest. Sometimes I’m off to the Undying Lands, sometimes I’m trudging toward Mordor, but either way, I start here . A cup in hand and the sense that at least I’m equipped for whatever’s coming. And sometimes it’s not just me. Sometimes there’s a council. A friend across the table, a small circle of confidence before we set off. Not quite the Council of Elrond, but close enough. Plans are made, jokes are shared, and for a moment the world feels steady. And when it doesn’t? Well, someone will loan me an axe.

Closing Sip

It’s not the best coffee I’ve ever had, that title still belongs to some rainy day in Wellington, memory-polished and unreachable, but it’s the best coffee I can get today. And that matters more. Because this place doesn’t just hand me caffeine; it hands me a beginning. A reason to keep moving.

A Rivendell in a paper cup.

And honestly? That’s magic.

When I Think About Myself, I Laugh Too

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Author’s Note:
This post was inspired by Maya Angelou’s poem “When I Think About Myself.” Her words come from a history and an experience that aren’t mine, but what resonated with me was her use of laughter as both armor and confession. What follows is my own reflection, a much smaller, messier version of that rhythm. About the ways I hide grief behind jokes. I hope you find something of yourself here too, whether it’s in the laughter, the grief, or the space in between.

The Spark

I read Maya Angelou’s poem “When I Think About Myself” and feel my chest tighten with recognition. I read it again, and it still catches in my throat. I read it today and it still fucking stings. Her laughter isn’t my laughter. Her history isn’t mine, but I know what it is to laugh so the crying doesn’t swallow you whole. My version is smaller, messier, less tethered to survival and more to shame. Still, the rhythm is familiar: joke first, grief hiding underneath.

My Version of the Laughter

I tell my therapist things that sound like jokes.
Like: “My sleep schedule isn’t broken, it’s just… creatively curated.”
Or: “My morning routine lasted three days, which is actually a personal best.”
She smiles, makes a note, and I try to move on, hopeful that I’ve kept it light.

But here’s the thing: I’m not really joking. (And my therapist knows that.) The jokes are just camouflage. They’re how I confess without admitting it.

It’s easier to laugh about my abandoned planners than to say I grieved the person I thought those planners could make me. It’s easier to make a crack about my Fitbit than to say I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever feel “normal.”

The laughter buys me just enough air to speak the truth, but only sideways… like I’m trying not to look it in the eye.

The Weight Underneath

The truth is, the laughter only stretches so far. Underneath it, there’s the ache of all the things I thought I’d outgrow by now: the scattered thoughts, the empty lists, the absolute fury at existing in the world, in general everything just being so fucking complicated.

I open an old planner and find week one filled with neat handwriting, hopeful doodles in the margins. Week two is patchy. Week three doesn’t exist. The book itself is heavier than it should be, not because of the paper, but because of the failure I’ve stapled to it.

It’s funny, in a bleak way, how much stationery can resemble a gravestone. Every notebook is a headstone for another version of me who didn’t make it. Another try at order, another attempt at “normal,” buried under tabs and trackers.

And that’s the part that stings most: I thought I was chasing productivity. What I was really chasing was proof I wasn’t broken.

Why It Resonates

That’s why Angelou’s poem lingers with me. She writes about laughter with a weight I can’t claim. Her survival isn’t mine to borrow. But the cadence of it … that rhythm of laughing to cover the pain, that part I know in my fucking bones.

Because every time I make a joke out of my mess, what I’m really saying is: “This hurts. This scares me. I don’t know how else to tell you.”

I can’t carry the weight she carried, but I can recognize the shape of my own.

Laughter, Still

So yes, I laugh,

The confession half-told,

Some truth wrapped in wit,

A joke that betrays more than I’d admit,

When I talk about myself.

RIP to the Perfect Notebook

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There’s a pile of them on my shelves: passion planners, diaries, bullet journals, colour-coded agendas, Italian leather ones, Japanese ones from before they changed the paper. A graveyard of productivity promises.

I used to believe that if I just found the right one, the perfect notebook, I’d finally unlock my life. I’d become the kind of person who shows up on time, never loses track of deadlines, and doesn’t panic when someone casually asks, “So what’s your five-year plan?”

Crisp pages. Neat lines. Tabs for goals and dreams. The stationery version of a miracle cure.

I bought them all. Dotted notebooks. Lined notebooks. Planners that could probably manage a small government. Each one promised that this time, no really this time,  I’d get my shit together.

The Imaginary Me

The perfect notebook was never just about pages and ink. It was about the imaginary neurotypical me I thought I was buying. The version of me who thrives on structure. Who remembers birthdays. Who completes her Self Assessment on time.

Capitalism sold me the fantasy. Pinterest boards sold me the aesthetic. Productivity blogs sold me the idea that my messy brain was just waiting for the right planner. 1990s mental health services backed them up.

She was supposed to be in there, hidden under the chaos, ready to be summoned by a 12-week goal tracker.

Spoiler: she never showed up.

What I Got Instead

What I actually got was:

Half-filled pages.

Colour-coded calendars abandoned after week two.

Expensive washi tape dots that stick to everything except the page you meant.

A cupboard that looks less like a productivity system and more like the stationery aisle of WH Smith exploded.


I wasn’t building a better version of me. I was building a stationery mausoleum.

Quantified Self

It wasn’t just notebooks either. I flirted with the whole Quantified Self movement. Habit trackers and bujos whispering that if I just paid attention to myself for more than 24 seconds, I’d finally see that commitment could make me a real person.

Pair it with a Fitbit.

Team up with a Nike+ FuelBand.

Add a Garmin to my wrist.

An app buzzing on my phone at hourly intervals. All of them promising that if I could log enough data points … steps, calories, sleep, water, moods, what colour my hair was…  I’d be unstoppable.

Spoiler: I remained very stoppable.

What I actually ended up with was a drawer full of obsolete gadgets because I’d lost the proprietary charger, three abandoned apps that I’d only remember when the recurring subscription charges left my bank account, and the growing suspicion that the only thing I was really tracking was my ability to fail in new formats.

The Grief

And here’s the part I didn’t expect: I still grieve her. That imaginary version of me. The tidy, consistent person I was told I could become with enough grit, discipline, and neon highlighters.

It’s something that’s come up a lot in counselling lately. Grief and Anger.

The Grief of realising I’ve spent decades chasing someone I could never be. The Anger at how long I believed it, how easily the promise was sold to me.

Capitalised because they’re like the characters from an animated movie, driving me onwards to be handed off to the next stage in the relay race of emotions. These are just the first two in a seven character montage. Available soon in a limited edition Funko Pop set.

It hits in small, sharp ways. The sting of old photos where I still looked optimistic, still thought I’d find my way into “normal.” The ache of more recent ones where the exhaustion is written across my face. That me is suffering under the quiet heaviness of all those empty planners, each one insisting I list my “Top 3 tasks for the day” while my brain shrugged and said “Not today Satan.” Too many empty lists wearing heavy on the soul.

Letting that mythical version of me go feels like admitting defeat. Like giving up on the life that was supposed to be waiting just around the corner, if only I tried harder. If only I could use the perfect planner for four whole weeks.

It’s absurd, grieving someone who never existed.

But it’s real. I spent decades chasing her. Longer than my marathon career ever lasted.

What’s Left

So here I am. Surrounded by half-used notebooks, still inconsistent, still messy, still me. I don’t have the imaginary life I was promised, and I’m still figuring out how to stop mourning it.

But maybe the first step is admitting it: that version of me… She isn’t dead. She was never real.

And maybe the second step is laughing about it. Because if I don’t, I’ll just end up buying another notebook for the mausoleum.

So I ask you to please respect my privacy at this difficult time. The funeral will be a small private service for family and accountability buddies only. Afterwards, we’ll lay her to rest among the others in the mausoleum, the planners, the apps, the gadgets … a whole graveyard of good intentions. And maybe that’s okay.

Maybe it’s time to stop haunting the cemetery and just start living in the mess.

“Even Bad Coffee…”

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I’ve drunk more bad coffee than good, but I’ve never turned down a cup.

The Worst Coffee

When my local Krispy Kreme opened they handed me a cup of what can only be described as caffeinated despair. Burn shots of coffee poured over the water of disappointment. I didn’t complain, obviously, I just drank it and ate my donut. I even went back, just to see if I had been wrong, like it was some sort of Emperors New Clothes trick.

I left the second time absolutely aghast that somewhere could make coffee that was so bad, even I hated it. But I still drank it.
Because having bad coffee in hand is still better than having nothing. Lynch knew.

The Best Coffee

On the other end of the spectrum sits Mr Bun’s Bakery, a café in Wellington, New Zealand where I had the best coffee of my life. It was a rainy day, the coffee was the right temperature, the sounds of Wellington just hit the right tempo, and it was just perfect.

Shhh. Just for a moment. Let me remember. FUCK.

I doubt I remember the actual coffee correctly these days. It was more than 20 years ago. If you’ve ever been to Mr Bun’s Bakery in Wellington, New Zealand you’re probably confused at how it’s the best coffee of my life. But every cup since has been chasing that high, and none of them have even come close. It hasn’t stopped me trying though.

Why I Keep Drinking It Anyway

Here’s the thing: it’s not just about taste. I didn’t describe the roast or the altitude the beans were grown at. What the mix of Arabica and Robusta was. Did I get a flat white, or a doppio? Did that matter?

For years I thought I just loved coffee. I’ve worked in coffee chains, opened my own coffee shop. In one place I worked you could plot the times I was away from the location by the change in the amount of beans used in that week. My coffee consumption literally tracked by the kilogram.

Turns out, I was probably self-medicating undiagnosed ADHD with americanos and loyalty cards. Coffee helped me focus. It gave me a ritual. It gave my restless hands something to do and my restless brain something to cling to.

The weirdest part? I’ve never had a caffeine withdrawal headache in my life. Not once. Apparently my nervous system just accepted that coffee is part of the package deal. Superpower, or giant red flag? Hard to tell.

Ritual Over Quality

Good or bad, coffee is less about flavour and more about existence. It’s a prop. A crutch. Proof of life. Even the worst cup can trick my brain into thinking I’m at least doing something.

So yes, I’ll complain. I’ll roll my eyes at the sludge in my cup. But I’ll still drink it. Because god forbid I sit here with nothing in my hands but my thoughts.

Closing Sip

Even bad coffee is better than no coffee at all.” – David Lynch

I’m fortunate these days that I don’t have to go to Krispy Kreme for coffee, my children don’t need to be bribed with donuts when we go to the city center. There are many great places to get coffee within a short walk, but non of them are Mr Bun’s Bakery.

Never forget David Lynch was right.

Knitting Is My Favorite Distraction

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“First you need to take the yarn in your right hand…“

I didn’t go to a class, or learn from a wise relative passing down ancient yarn secrets. I learned to knit from YouTube — which means my teachers were mostly disembodied hands with suspiciously good manicures.

I was pregnant with my first child, and I wanted to make a baby blanket. It’s so cliche it cool. The blanket was simple, except I choose to do colourwork too, because I can’t possibly start with something plain. It was finished before my baby was born, but did not survive contact with the babies dad putting it directly into the washing machine. Wool on a regular wash. Dear Reader, I cried.

Somehow, despite the destruction of my first finished item, I’m actually pretty good at it. My stitches are neat. My tension’s solid. I’ve tackled socks, lace, different types of colourwork. All the things that make non-knitters look at you like you’ve just solved a maths equation in your head, no problem mate, done it.

The Strange Fate of Finished Objects

Here’s the thing though: I rarely wear or keep anything I make. I can knit a pair of socks that fit perfectly, and then hand them over to someone else like they’re a disposable coffee cup. Scarves, hats, mittens — they all wander off to other people’s wardrobes, while mine remains conspicuously empty of anything I’ve actually made.

The four finished items* in the photo at at the top, all completed in 2024, all about to go off to other people this month**. One will be a birthday gift for someone’s mum, another sent further north to keep a neck warm, one posted onwards to decorate the back of an armchair, and the last to a teenager who is just excited to get a handmade item.

Why Knitting Stuck (When Other Things Didn’t)

There’s something about the rhythm of it that works on my brain in a way most “self-care” activities don’t.

Running collapsed under the weight of one very soggy marathon. Journaling can be as much a way to blame myself for things, as it is a way to off load things that are eating up my mental RAM. And stretching? That’s just me having an argument with my hips***.

But knitting? Knitting sticks. Even when I put it down for months, I always pick it back up, and it always feels like coming back to something useful.

Not Quite Useful, But Definitely Mine

It doesn’t “heal” me. It doesn’t “fix” me. But it does give my restless hands something to do, and my restless mind a puzzle to chew on. There’s a similar metronome of movement that I once found in running, giving me a small pocket of quiet in my brain. It fends off the existential dread with a mantra of “knit, knit, purl.”

Not all hobbies have to be deep and meaningful. Sometimes it’s just loops of yarn and a bit of distraction, and that’s enough.

So yes, I’m self-taught, I’m good at it, and yet my drawers are mostly full of yarn waiting for it’s moment rather than finished objects… because god forbid I ever keep something nice for myself.****

*Yes, two of those finished items are crochet. Don’t be picky.

**No, I’ve not sold them. I don’t need to make money of this, and to be honest the admin of someone covering the cost of the yarn is simply not something I give a fuck about. You like the item? Great. Take it. Enjoy.

***The second child caused that hip problem. I knit them a blanket too. It was much simpler than the first one I made, but did have a cute hood.

****This is probably something I need to think more about.

13 years ago an attempt was made…

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I didn’t realise at the time, but I was starting my last marathon attempt. It was not my first long run. It was not my first marathon. But it was the last time I purposefully went running.

My previous marathon had been through my birth town. There were crowds, familiar scenery, and reasonable weather despite being on the coast. At the end I cried, some enthusiastic folks gave me my medal and a banana, and they ushered me towards a spot where someone took my photo. (The photo turned out to be very expensive, and I looked terrible in it.) But photography aside, I liked it enough to sign up for another marathon 3 years later.

And now we’re up to date for this story.

Thirteen years ago I started a marathon in my home town. I was excited, and I had trained reasonably well. I was never going to be a fast marathon runner, or in the top percentiles for any age bracket. I wasn’t chasing bling, it was always just a personal thing. Less than 1% of the population complete a marathon. It’s the only 1% I’ll ever qualify for.

But on the day, the weather was horrible. It shouldn’t have been surprising really. The location was once known as “the wettest city in England.” The drizzle was despicable, cold and unending. In stark contrast to my previous marathon, through a city, filled with people, this one fairly quickly went out of town and into the countryside.

The Lancashire countryside is vast and beautiful, but the sheep did not care for the 1650 folks who were foolish enough to want to run long distances on a wet day. The cows were not interested if this was a difficult run or not.

There are, I think, different types of folk who run marathons. There are those who are there to compete, either against people around them, or themselves. The time, the pace is important. It is a race after all.

And then there are those who are there for the experience. They have trained, just like the other folks, but there is less concern about time, and more about completion. I am one of these people. The overall experience for me was misery.

I think it was somewhere around mile twenty one where the first aiders pulled up beside me. I must have looked terrible. Worse even than the expensive finishers photo from my last marathon. I must have sounded terrible too, because I couldn’t even remember my date of birth, or my age.

So that was it. My last marathon. My heroic finale: shuffled off the course by first aiders, wrapped in tin foil like leftovers, and chauffeured across the finish line in a van. Not quite the epic tale of endurance I’d imagined.

And honestly? I let that day kill running and writing in one go. I failed at one hobby, so obviously my brain decided I wasn’t allowed to enjoy the other. Very rational. Top-tier coping strategies.

Thirteen years later, I haven’t run a single marathon. No half marathons, 10k or parkruns. No running anywhere unless it was across a convention center with XLR leads. But here I am, writing again. Because apparently I needed over a decade to recover from typing about exercise. Olympic-level procrastination.

So no, this isn’t some grand running comeback. There’s no training plan. No redemption arc, or even an inspiring 80s montage. It’s just me, finally admitting that one bad day doesn’t have to be the last word.

And if it took me thirteen years to figure that out… well, at least I’m consistent.