Weaving Together the Threads

I am a wearer of hats.  They are myriad, these hats, enough to send the fabled hatter into a frenzy.  Mother. Wife. Daughter. Midwife. Writer. Friend. Leader. Teacher. The list goes on and on.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  Long ago, though, in a coping mechanism, I taught myself to compartmentalize.  I have more compartments, and they are more watertight, than the Titanic.  When I would transition from one role to another I could almost hear the sccccrraatcch THUNNNNKKK of the door slamming shut and the pressure valve spinning.  But, lately I realized something.  Much like the Titanic, I was going under.  I was sinking.  The hats I mentioned?  Suddenly they didn't seem to fit correctly.  You see, life is not so well defined as the roles I was trying to play.  Life colors outside of the lines.  So I had former clients who wanted to be friends and I couldn't...quite...do it.  I didn't know how to engage in that kind of exchange.  I began to be very uncomfortable with touch.  After all, I massage and hug others as part of caregiving.  To receive a hug is to receive care and as a perpetual careGIVER I could no longer receive a hug.  Also, I was always working at the eleventh hour because I couldn't bring myself to start one project until I'd completed the last.  As big as my head is, I couldn't seem to fit more than one hat at a time.  My websites reflected this; one for my writing, one for my business, one for my hobby and never the mane shall tweet as the joke goes.  Sometimes there were things I wanted to say, but I couldn't; I didn't have a forum for random thoughts after all.  I've been thinking and praying quite a lot lately and one of the things that has been revealed to me is that it is time to start weaving the strands of my life together (have we hit maximum metaphor density yet?).  It's time to take those roles and turn them into a wife.  This website is part of that; a little bit of everything, like me.  I used to make macrame necklaces, now I'm trying with my life; take the strands, wrap them around each other and make something beautiful.