From One Recovering Calligrapher

I sure hope I’ve learned my lesson this time…

This weekend, I unwinded with some quiet time at home.

Today, I have a little bottle from my para. She just brought it to work for me to play with one day last week. See why I loves her? 🥰

I also received some handmade ink from a dear, artist friend of mine to play with too. ❤️  

She told me that these wouldn’t work well for calligraphy. So far, she has been correct about a few. But that won’t stop me from trying. My next step will be to put some gum arabic in the thinner inks and see how the nib handles them.

Yup. I predict it’s going to be a great, long weekend. ❤️

But it’s so telling that they are giving me things to play with at this time. Both of them know I’ve had a challenging few weeks here lately.

And play and unwind I shall.

In fact, it’s a must do this weekend…because up until now, I’ve been doing everything but.

A few months ago, I ended the holiday season feeling satisfied and ready to begin a new year. I figured this year was going to start off with a bang given that I had a few, exciting events already on the books and some new things to handle for my daughter, including securing guardianship.

What I didn’t know was that bang would turn out to be more of a zap! 😳

From the DUSSE Lunar New Year events to the Valentine’s Day at Bloomingdale’s and the Dior launch, I thoroughly enjoyed all of the events I had, as usual…Although I had some sniffles through the last two.

You can take a peek at some highlights below.

These were probably the most challenging bottles during the DUSSE Lunar New Year events. I’m no stranger to illustrative engraving…But to do these at an event. Whew! 😅

Valentine’s Day at Bloomingdale’s was mad eventful! Plus, I even got to attempt a manual fill on a Parfums de Marly bottle…and let me tell you, that is one time-consuming service!

This Dior launch was so beautiful! Photos don’t happen as often as they should during these launches since the lighting isn’t as flattering in photos as it is for the evening. But, I took the time to try my hand at Spencerian for speed. It was a fun challenge!

At home, I also took on some other projects like these engraved bottles below. The bottles were donated to Delaware Female Creatives for their Pretty in Pink event where businesswomen are able to network and share their gifts, talents and services.

Though I don’t do it often, I love putting together gifts! These bottles were part of a raffle item. And since the event was a Delaware event, I purchased the bottles from Evernette Wines, a Delaware winemaker, and wrapped them furoshiki-style to make them extra special. 🥰

However, since the start of the year, I had also been running around attempting to file paperwork and attend meetings for my daughter’s needs. She is eighteen now, and since she is an adult with disabilities, without me applying for guardianship, she would become a ward of the State. Guardianship was the obvious solution to me, although it required quite a bit of legwork. I’m happy to say I had a successful outcome and the State made this process as painless as possible. 🙏🏾

Still, at the end of the day, it seems I didn’t pace myself well through any of it and I wound up going from a touch under the weather to full-blown sick.

As a woman who has not yet completed “the change of life”, I am thoroughly acquainted with ignoring feeling uncomfortable and going to work anyway. It’s definitely not the best practice. It’s just a reality that women tend to live with after we get our first visit from our beloved “Auntie”.

But, “Auntie’s” repeated visits condition us to ignore even greater issues. And when the time comes that it’s necessary that we get off the merry-go-’round for a minute to care for ourselves, we can miss all the signals.

By the time it came to that for me, a doctor was prescribing time off. 😳

Not my proudest moment…especially as someone who had just taken on the role of becoming a permanent guardian.

I’m certain I’m not the only woman with this issue of taking a break. And suffice it to say, I’ll likely have to learn and re-learn this throughout my working years. Life doesn’t stop life-ing, and for women, wives, moms, caregivers, employees…etc., it’s so easy to neglect the care of our bodies in order to make it all work.

For caregivers, in particular, I think it’s so easy to fall into the habit of constantly doing something because you’re stewarding the life of another person while attempting to successfully lead your own.

Case in point, parents need breaks from time-to-time, and for years, those who cared for my daughter did so so that I could work or maintain employment. It’s no wonder that somewhere along the way, work became synonymous with breaks. Or as my ink-making friend recently put it, “Do you ever slow down?”

I honestly don’t always know how to…But, I am learning.

What’s not so easy to do is to remember the value of our presence to our families and friends…To remember that, regardless of how this life moves, it’s not so easy to replace us…and to remember that we owe it to ourselves to be well…

…and, at the end of the day, we all deserve a little play time too.

So…from one recovering calligrapher to you, take care of you, please. The world only gets one of you. ❤️