The spark that saved me.

For a while, crafting brought me great joy. It was my spark in a very gloomy situation. A spark that sharpened my imagination and broke me out of my prison. The kind of spark that made me jump out of bed and be excited for the day in the darkest times. Crafting was my best friend and my only escape. When I was 10 years old I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. Little did I know at the time, that small diagnosis would turn my life upside down. The world as I knew it would go from full of people and laughter to a world that was Deafening from the silence. A year after I was diagnosed I was bed-bound. I had all the time in the world to stay in a four-walled room with the door closed. No visitors and nothing to do but think, do my hair and watch YouTube. A prison of sorts. Even though I shared a room with my sister who was 18 months older than me. My world was empty. My sister never came into the room till after I was asleep because it was too painful for her to see me so sick. After days and weeks of watching YouTube and staring at the ceiling, I came across a YouTube channel about crafting. That’s when I found out what crafting was. I started obsessing over the idea of doing something for hours with minimal movement. I watched people do an activity by themselves for hours. That sparked my interest. The first craft I started to study and obsessed over was knitting. I began to be obsessed with learning how to knit without even having any supplies. At that time of my life I was too scared to ask for anything to do; because I did not want to seem ungrateful as I was already taking a considerable amount of time from my parents going from doctor to doctor appointment. So I would just sit on my bed looking at YouTube videos forwarding and rewinding. Looking at every movement and studying it. Eventually, my birthday came around, and to my surprise, I got knitting needles and the brightest orange ball of yarn. I couldn’t contain my excitement as I screamed and smiled from ear to ear. That day I started teaching myself how to knit. I first wanted to make a scarf. I remember looking up videos and slowly but eventually getting faster and faster at knitting. As I got the hang of it I held this mantra in my head “around, under, over, out”. That was the trick I would do since I could not read a pattern. I never did end up ever following any written patterns to knitting even ten years later. By the end of that first month of my first knitting project, I was done. I remember the gratifying snip as I cut off the tail end of the project with scissors. I remember looking at my first knitting project ever and being kinda let down. What was supposed to be a circle scarf ended up looking like a wreath. Even though it did not turn out that well I was still proud of myself. I was now the proud owner of that orange-knitted wreath. That was only the start of my crafting adventure. Throughout the years I’ve done more knitting projects, crochet, rainbow loom, hook latch, cards, friendship bracelets to name a few. I'm currently on the embroidery side of crafting. You could say throughout those difficult years I used crafting as a Coping Mechanism. But believe it or not, before I ever had an embroidery stage I lost my spark. When I entered my first year of college I did not want to associate with crafting. I felt lost and my spark was only a murmur. I did not want to do anything at all. All I wanted to do was be healthy. At that stage, I was the healthiest I've been in years. I was driving to college from my parents each day. Which was a huge deal since driving was not always easy to do in my condition. I remember driving to school every morning as early as I could just because I could and leaving school as late as I could. Although this seems like a big difference from when I was bed-bound I still felt the same imprisonment. What no one knew is I took naps in my car as I was exhausted and just did not want anyone to know. I would hide in the bathroom in between classes crying in pain. I did not eat much and was so done with this misery and pain. My life was empty and I did not know how long I could hold on. Days became harder and harder to hide how I was struggling. I would break out in tears at any given moment not only from pain but from my mental prison that I was in. At this point in my life I’ve tried every drug the doctors could give me and many caused allergic reactions or did not work. I felt like a guinea pig as doctors sliced me and took pieces of my soul. I had undergone surgeries, intrusive scans, and hospital stays that seemed to last a lifetime. I looked like a skeleton and was labeled by many as the “sick kid”. Even tho I was in college I was still labeled “kid” because I still looked like one. I would get many strange looks while I drove to and from places as the neighboring cars would see someone who looks 13 driving but I was 18. A whole year passed and I did not craft. I mean I tried somewhat but never really felt my heart was in it. You could tell too. All the projects I tried were never finished and looked in my opinion as ugly as possible. It wasn’t until one of my recent last doctor's appointments that I realized I’m letting my spark be buried and that it was almost dead and I did not want that. I remember rushing to Michaels's craft store after that appointment and looking for a new craft. I went aisle to aisle and could not find anything that sparked my spark again. I looked and looked till Coincidentally I saw a pair of scissors that was the brightest orange I ever did see. It reminded me of the first craft I made. I grabbed the pair of scissors determined to find a project that I could use it for. I went from aisle to aisle and finally found it, Embroidery. I remember thinking this was perfect because I could use the bright orange scissors I already had in my basket. I grabbed as many colors as was in my small budget and other embroidery supplies and went straight home. As I started to embroider I lined up the first color to the length of my arm and cut them with my new scissors. I did that over and over as I switched from color to color. I threaded every new color, threw the small eye of the needle, and took the needle in and out of the cloth. I made small flowers and a small saying that said “work in progress” as that would be my new mantra. From that moment forth I still cried myself to sleep at times but it has become less often because I have found my spark again. I had something to look forward to and something that gave me something to do besides wallow in my misery. As well as a new look at life. Now, I don't want to attribute all this credit to crafting, as many things have influenced me and helped me such as my friends, my faith, my grandparents, and my community. But it sure is the short version to a very long story.