Repeat.

I've always been drawn to pattern: pulled towards the drift of a passing stranger's dress, the promise of beauty beyond shop windows, or dancing shadows cast on the ground. It's something about the colours, the complexity, the stories I could create about that person, or that place. The desire to capture and own them. If only I could spend all day wrapped in the joy I found in them, handle them, make beautiful things from them. So I made it happen. I took patterns, I made them into beautiful things, I shared that joy with strangers. How could that be anything but the straightest route to happiness?

That's the thing about anxiety. It pulls you away from those tiny moments of joy that you barely even notice when you're well. Gone are the moments that flit past, barely enough to form a memory, yet enough to make you believe that this world is good, colourful, full of promise. Eyes become fogged, the brain just doesn't have the space to absorb the richness that the world has to offer. It's just pulling - no, crushing - inwards. The world desaturates, and vision becomes a tunnel. At the end, no light. Not even the dappled light, enchanting and joyful. Just fear. Passions become the daily grind, the pressures mounts, I can't keep up, it's spiralling away from me, I can't see through the fog, the pattern becomes muddy, paralysing, dragging me down like quicksand, I’m certain I'll drown and I can't sleep can't eat my thoughts are nothing but fear and fog and fear and fog and -

Needle in. Yarn around needle. Pull it through. Transfer stitch. Repeat.

Needle in. Yarn around needle. Pull it through. Transfer stitch. Repeat.

But the fear, the fog, the fear, the fog, everything has blurred and muddied and there's no way to -

Needle in. Yarn around needle. Pull it through. Transfer stitch. Repeat.

The comfort of pattern. The repetition. The tangibility of creating, and of arranging something so tangled into neat, regular stitches, if only thoughts were so compliant. One by one by one by row by row by row. The soft tap of needles, just loud enough to drown out the fear. They create the space to do, without thinking. They create the space to do, and think gently. To arrange stitches, to arrange thoughts. Patterns start to form. What-ifs start to form. Not crushing what-ifs, the ones that usher in the fog, thick and fast, the paralysing tunnel vision of fear and darkness and -

Needle in. Yarn around needle. Pull it through. Transfer stitch. Repeat.

Needle in. Yarn around needle. Pull it through. Transfer stitch. Repeat.

The what-ifs that are full of promise, and colour, and pattern. Full of joy. What if I make something I’ve never made before? What if I design my own patterns? What if I go all in with a celebration of colour? Square by square, the patterns return. Triangular grids on drain covers. Shadows cast by curtains. Leaves that drift to the ground. Tiles adorning walls. Two birds, in silhouette. Brick by brick, block by block, linking and joining together to form a drift of hope, colour, joy. The pattern draws me back, the rhythm and repetition and the fog retreats.

Hundreds of hours of work, of therapy, of escape lay at my feet. Neatly pressed, arranged and ready to be joined into a spectrum of pattern.

It’s hard to accept that what you thought would bring you contentment and peace bought the opposite. We idolise creativity, but we also idolise the ability to live from it. What I’ve learnt, where I’ve found my peace, is to create for me. Truly for me. Embrace the shapes, the colours, the repetition. Imagine the design, feel the yarn, create the pattern, and wrap myself in the joy I made.

Needle in. Yarn around needle. Pull it through. Transfer stitch. Repeat.

Each pattern repeated, but each one unique.