Tenacious...

I’ve been called that before (among other less flattering synonyms). I don’t give up on things easily… or gracefully for that matter. Some may think that it is a good quality, and maybe it is. But is also a quality that adds a great deal of undue stress and frustration to my already chaotic life.

For example… every Spring for as long as I can remember (well… at least as long as my adult life) I get this overwhelming urge to garden. Maybe its becasue when I was little, I used to help my dad take care of our garden… which was HUGE and grew all sorts of yummy fresh veggies. Plus it was one of the few quality times my Dad and I spent together. So, pretty much every Spring, the urge strikes and I hit the Lowes, buy all sorts of seeds… Basil, Parsley, Thyme, Tomaotes (you get the idea) and plant myself a small Patio Garden. Then, about 3 weeks later, after I’ve managed to kill everything… I give up on being a farmer for one more year… only to rinse and repeat 12 months later.

It’s the same thing with needlecrafts. I’ve managed to make a few nice things… a scarf or two, slipper socks (whick took forever and were a lesson in patience) so I’m not a complete mook. But a few years back, I spent months making a baby blanket for a friend and his wife as a gift to their first child. It was my first blanket, and though it was not perfect, I was proud of it. They smiled politely, told be how beautiful is was, and never used it… and I swore I would never knit another baby blanket again unless it was for my own child. But… remember the title of this entry… I’m tenacious. I decided to try again, with similar results and a similar outcome.

I don’t give up on friends either… even when I should. When I was 18, one of my best friends stopped talking to me. I would write to him every once in a while, try to reach out, only to find my attempts at communication fell on deaf ears. Yet I still tried every so often, until about a year ago. That’s when he finally had the compassion (or the courage) to write back and let me know that he didn’t want to be friends anymore. So now I’m rinsing and repeating with another friend who has not returned a phonecall or email in 10 months. Though many will think I’m being silly, I imagine I will periodically try to stay in contact until he tells me to piss off. What can I say… I’m tenacious.