Knowing when it's time to let go...

Home sick today, as most of my officemates prefer "people sneezing violently and nigh-continuously" to be "not in the office". Which has nothing to do with today's post, but hey, achoo.

Today really needed to be the last Master's Monday before I mail my package, which has to be back the first week of June. It's not going to be; I'm letting it go.

It has become abundantly clear over the last month that I'm not going to finish before the one-year deadline, even though I could, if I pushed it. It's just not worth the stress right now. When I'm barely getting to work most days (please, oh please, let next year be the LOWEST allergy season on record!!), and spend most of the weekend flattened by my shots (for example: I don't really remember Saturday. I slept through it.), what little spare energy I have is going to be spent knitting/stitching/quilting cute, small, trivial things that it doesn't *matter* if I finish (HPKCHC is fun, but NONE of it is mandatory. If I finish things, great; if not, no biggie), and most of the actual energy is spent on "waking up" and "making sure the family is fed/clothed" sorts of things. When "spare time for fun" is generally "four hours Sunday afternoon", that cuts into the Doing Big Things.

Now, the allergy thing won't last forever; I'm near the end of the Actual Treatment (although it's taking a bit longer than anyone really expected), and will go on maintenance - plus, WINTER. Love winter. Always been my favorite season... and I've gotten to spend a winter without a heater in this house. I STILL love winter. With the winter, there should be more time, energy, and, yes, knitting. As TKGA will be putting out *new* Masters Standards in July (debuting at the conference - I'm still going!), I figure I'll send for my packet sometime in 2011, once I've seen how folks are doing with it. I still plan to get Level 1 at some point (which we'll call "2011" for now).

Why I know this is a good thing for me? The sheer relief I felt when I decided to just let it go, not worrying about making the deadline, and not stressing about this thing I was allegedly doing for fun. I'll get back to it, but for now, it's best that I just .... let it go.