So buy it/make it once doesn’t mean zero maintenance.
When I made this 6-ply jute crochet jute bag in February or so, I waxed it with melted beeswax then.
But beeswax wears down, so it has to be reapplied occasionally.
And the waxing cuts down on the jute shedding but does not eliminate it. So, the whole bag has to be emptied and vacuumed out and I used tape to catch the fibers still caught after the vacuuming.
And then I melted my wax, and used the dedicated brush I have for this purpose and went over the whole thing in the kitchen with melted beeswax. Then I went to our bathroom and used the hair dryer on high to melt the beeswax into the bag.
I did the waxing process twice when I made the bag to begin with, but doing it again every few months is probably going to be a good thing, at least for a while.
And while I didn’t do it when I put the straps on, I used leather conditioner on the straps today, too.
The longer luggage strap is permanently affixed— I used 2-part jeweler’s epoxy to permanent close the clasps to the bag.
Mama and Daddy gave me the 16 inch Holdfast stabilizer in 2018 or 2019, and it is perfect for days that I want a shorter strap— the luggage strap tucks in the bottom of the bag just right, as seen in this photo:
The Holdfast strap comes off on days I have my laptop in the bag, or on days it’s otherwise packed to the brim with camera gear.
In general though, Jared’s lining has proven to be hardy and holds up to my wear— I did manage to get an ink stain in the pocket and I tried the rubbing alcohol trick and while it didn’t completely do away with it, the stain does look more like a color block than a pen accident. The stain is deep enough to not be visible at all and is light, so it is just a part of the bag now.
I’ve decided when the lining does eventually wear out, I will use stitch removers and cut it out and we’ll just make a new one.
This bag is big enough to hold anything I want to carry on a regular basis…. If I remove the Holdfast strap I can fit my MacBook, a notebook, my paper calendar, and my camera with a lens attached. If I don’t have the MacBook in it I can carry a camera (or two) with two lenses in pouches.
I kept 4 other purses for days it’s either not practical or inappropriate to carry this big bag.
But I do love that it has turned out to be practical. Making bags like this has killed my purse addiction. It took 4 attempts to get one that was just right, and I don’t follow a pattern for these, I just stitch in the round till I decide it’s big enough, and then stitch till it’s tall enough. Not hard, except on my hands. Being able to make my own bags that fit my lifestyle better than anything I have ever found in stores has pretty much made it impossible to consider buying a purse off a shelf pretty much ever again.
And re-waxing with beeswax once every few months is just fine with me, if this will last me several years before I have to make another one.
Eventually I intend to try making a smaller one. Haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I bought these Bamboo boots at Cherry Bomb at L5P in September of 2003. I remember they were probably about $100 in a time I had zero business spending $100 on a pair of shoes that were impractical, that I absolutely did not need. I did not need rain galoshes at the time; I probably needed dress shoes for work.
Here they are, three minutes ago, in June of 2026.
These boots saw me through two winters in Iowa. I remember a guy in the parking lot while I was working at Grinnell Mutual pointing at me and laughing and telling me I needed real snow shoes. But these rubber boots are completely waterproof and skid proof: perfect for snow and ice.
Most of the past 23 years, they have lived in the back of my closet.
I bought myself two pairs of Aérosoles Daria boots in 2025 and wore them near daily the entire year; I separated the soles on the brown pair, completely wearing them out. The faux patent leather pair still survives but is on its last legs probably.
And so, these are coming out and into the rotation more often, in favor of buying new boots. I wear mostly blacks and grays anyway, so a little color doesn’t hurt. And I do still love them every bit as much as I did in 2003.
I have owned these boots half my lifetime, and I’m hoping they last the rest of it.
My body is falling apart. It was happening slowly, then I had a hysterectomy and now it’s happening not so slowly. When I lie on my left side, now my right leg longer than my left, above the knee.
Which is interesting, because my legs were measured over a year and a half ago from the hips and that’s not the longer leg.
My spine is collapsing in on itself. My hips are contorting, my spine is corksrewing like a single helix, and sometimes when I lie in the bed just right depending on the angle, I can feel the rods in my spine as the only barrier between further collapse.
There was a time when I couldn’t feel the rods at all. And I still can’t, except in very specific positions. Positions that used to be comfortable to lie in at night.
And sometimes I try new positions. I’ve tried lying on my back to sleep. Occasionally I do sleep on my back. And when I do, I wake up feeling like my right shoulder is attempting to cave in toward my left hip. Which, it is. The left side of my body is the weak side of my body. It is the side that is collapsing. And my right shoulder is caving forward. And I lean back when I am not paying attention to my posture.
My posture is much better since we got rid of the reclining couch, now that I am sitting in my rocking chair full-time when sitting in the living room.
I try to resist lying on my left side at night.
I remember after the scoliosis surgery in 1993. I was so young, and the surgery involved an incision that spanned the entirety of my left side. I remember the first time I could lie on that side again after the surgery, for brief periods.
That curve that was around 91 degrees or so the week of the surgery, that got corrected to the 45-degree range ultimately, with a corresponding curve now….and those Harrington-Luque system rods that line my spine from my shoulder blades, drilled deep into my hips. And all those little twist ties, as I call them, still there to this day.
Sometimes, when I feel the force of those rods in whatever position I’m lying in bed at night, I think about those twist ties wrapped around my spine. And I wonder what happens if one gives— whether the tie gives, or whether the bone of my spine gives first.
I remember being in the bathtub in the days before the surgery. At 13 years od, I remember bending my spine in that tub, and I remember knowing that I needed to remember that feeling, that I would never feel it again in a couple of days— maybe the next day; I don’t know.
If I try really, really hard, to remember, I can remember that feeling even now. It’s been 33 years and a few days, and even now, I do remember that one specific moment. I remember telling myself, willing myself, to remember that feeling.
Sometimes I can’t remember. Tonight, I can.
My left side is most comfortable to lie on to this day. The primary curve bends the opposite direction.
But my left side has its own curve now, up above my ribs and into my neck. I know it is not a great idea to lie on it regularly.
And yet, I find myself caving to my most basic comfort positions when I am exhausted. And when I am exhausted, that involves lying on my left side, holding a bolster to sleep. Comfort wins.
Bipolar disorder and PTSD is pretty much the worst combination the universe could have sent me for severe, progressive scoliosis.
I have spent literal years in the bed depressed. Not a great recipe when activity and strength is required to maintain my internal scaffolding.
And queue days like today. Good days make me want to try.
My Daddy and Jared installed a Swedish ladder system in our bathroom several weeks ago. Some days I touch it, some days I don’t.
This morning, I hung for a couple of minutes before we went to Dawsonville.
Tonight, I sat on my stool by the ladder, and just sat there leaning forward, with my arms pulling on the highest bar I could reach. Then I climbed up the ladder and hung, and breathed for a minute. The muscles under my left arm are pretty darn weak. Just hanging on, even while sitting there, stretched them in ways that were strenuous.
So, I came out and worked on my balance exercises I learned in physical therapy over a year and a half ago. I stand on one of my favorite stools to do those exercises. Then I laid on the floor and did some reps with a 2 pound weight. And I tried my breathing exercises while I did my arm reps on the floor.
Schroth breathing exercises involve visualizing inflating the parts of your spine and torso that are deflating. And doing that involves getting in touch with the fact that my body is indeed, contorting in 3D. Which is tougher than it sounds. I can look in the mirror and see that my left side is collapsing with no shirt on.
I can look and see the dip in my shoulder. I can look and see that on the corrsponding side, my hip is higher than the right. But in my brain, my spine feels straight. It fights my brain to get in touch with the reality of the geometry of my spine.
And the amount of concentration required to do those breathing exercises that inflate the bottom back left of my rib cage and lungs and spinal column…..It’s effort. We’ll say that.
And when I am doing those breathing exercises correctly, the intensity of the activation required of my lower right abdominal muscles…..it’s pretty darn strenuous and it requires no small amount of concentration.
And all that is well and good and promising for the Schroth method, except it requires just the right conditions.
And, I’m working really hard on stability. Life is good these days. We have a household routine, Jared and I are luckier than we deserve both with the boys’ health and their determination and ambition and accomplishments and how they carry themselves.
And, the breathing exercises are hard. But with each session, I become more aware of my body’s unique geometry, my own place in space. At 46 years old, I may be late to the game, but everyone starts somewhere, right?
And tonight, doing those breathing exercises on the floor for 20 long reps while I lifted those weights straight ahead and over my body……
Tonight those breathing exercises reminded me that I do indeed remember what it felt like to bend my spine, before that forever fusion that solidified most of my spine.
I had someone repeatedly beg me to “not be mad at me for the things I did,” his words, a while ago.
What exactly did he do? Which thing, of the several I’d accused in the past, was I accurate about? I knew what I was angry about, but without an actual confession, with a blanket appeal for forgiveness without the itemized list, what was I to not be mad about?
I will never know.
That was December of 2024. It took me to October of 2025 to tell him in writing, that, why no, forgiveness was permanently off the table. In the same note, I basically told that person that he would not be in the line of work he is in today had I acted within my rights decades ago, had I known better at the time.
I’m pretty sure that is the line that earned me permanent silence on his end.
The forever silence is new. For someone who likes to have the last word, I wonder exactly how hard it is for him to restrain himself. The thing is, when that person is silent, it’s not because he wants to be. It’s because he knows it’s in his best interest to be.
And, it took me until April of this year to decide that yes, I was ready to extend forgiveness. I told that individual he owes me nothing; there are no strings attached; I forgive him.
And what has morphed since then is a feeling of pity for the smallness that is his outlook on life and relationships.
Opportunists sell themselves short on what capacity for human connection they may be capable of in their lifetimes. I’ve known more than one in my lifetime.
And just because certain vocations reward opportunism and narcissistic traits, success in those fields does not mean those people have any greater happiness because of their success.
In this particular case, I’m pretty darn sure that this person goes around punishing himself on the regular. A universal truth is that professional success does not mirror life satisfaction. In fact, my theory is that it is possible to use professional endeavors to mete out self-flagellation in real-time in ways that only those who have known us — really known us — recognize immediately.
And so, I actually do stand by that decision to forgive. I am choosing to move on with life. There actually isn’t a lot that would make my already happy and full life much happier. His lost access to me has been a precious gift I didn’t realize I needed.
Writing is far more fulfilling, and I have three lifetimes’ worth of material. I’m only just getting started.
And in this case, I am the smarter person, I am the stronger person, and I get the better sleep at night, I am certain.
Love is not enough to make a relationship work. It’s just not.
And I know, I know: the romantics out there would say to me: What in the world are you talking about? Love can only be enough.
But…..this is what I know: Love is just not enough.
I know this at a visceral, core-of-my-being.
Love is not enough.
You cannot love someone into living into their potential. You cannot love someone into actually trying. You cannot love someone into helping them to become a functional human being.
Love is just not enough. At all.
I’ve written at length about one core traumatic relationship, and another I write about hardly at all.
Why?
Because it is that painful.
Because that is the reason I know love is never enough.
If love were enough, I would not spend my days these days knowing there is a high likelihood that someday, there is a very high likelihood that someone I loved once upon a time will end up in a pauper’s unmarked grave, with no one to claim a body. There will be no obituary; there will be no one who was once close to him to know he is gone.
I have spent thirty-one years mourning this person in slow-motion. I was fifteen years old when he old me that he was self-destructive; about his chosen method of ending things; and the only thing keeping him from acting on his urge was the idea of me standing over his coffin, crying.
Love is not enough.
Fifteen year old me did not know that when people are self-destructive you don’t just listen; you actively seek assistance for that person.
I will not stand over that person’s coffin someday because I will not be notified.
I worry a very realistic worry that no one will be notified. There may be no one to notify.
And yet, I’ve already done the mourning: I’ve mourned in real-time, in slow-motion, for thirty-one years now.
I’ve done the crying over his coffin, before it ever happens.
Thirty-one years is a long time to feel responsible for someone else’s life.
I was fifteen years old. Fifteen.
I couldn’t drive by myself yet.
Love is not enough.
It should have struck me as odd when he chose to not go to school when he graduated. I was prepared to break up; I remember the morning I told him it was okay if we saw other people; shortly after he graduated.
He didn’t go to school. He didn’t go to work.
It was nearly a full year before he told me he was waiting on me to graduate so we could go to school together.
Looking back, my response should have been, “You might have wanted to talk to me about that.”
I wish he had talked to me about that idea before he made that sort of decision.
It accomplished his aim; it’s how I ended up at Georgia State because he refused to entertain any other school ideas than the Art Institute of Atlanta.
I engineered my entire college choice around a guy. There was no choice. I applied nowhere else. I had options; I had no idea.
Love is not enough. If it were, then some level of appealing to his sense of ambition might have worked when both myself and his family attempted to convince him to avail himself of the tuition-free attendance that was available to him through his mother’s employment, to Emory.
I didn’t really realize I was in danger yet.
I should have realized I was in danger.
There were no hints of being afraid of him at all until I decided I wanted to be able to see other people.
That happened the first week of classes my Freshman year.
I went out for pizza with someone else and I remember being terrified to tell him.
There were hints, little warning signs I didn’t know to see at the time.
For instance, we started dating in late January of my first year of high school and for Valentine’s Day that year, despite the fact that we were barely saying two words to each other on the phone yet, he showed up to school with a giant gift bag full of gifts for Valetine’s Day: love-bombing.
Sometime around Christmas the next year we skipped a Christmas party and I knew my parents were out at their own Christmas party, so I showed him where we lived.
A few weeks later a rose was left on my car.
It was a full three years after my graduation before the gravity of the danger I was in showed in full-force: he was prepared to use lethal force on anyone who encroached on me, his possession. And a week later, he proved that he was willing to use my own fears against me, to compel me into staying by force when he felt me finally slipping through his fingers forever.
I firmly believe I would not be alive today had I stayed beyond that Spring of 2001.
The terror remains; the knowledge of his likely present circumstance is of little daily comfort. I have had two nightmares in the last week about this individual coming to hurt me. The knowledge that he likely doesn’t have the will or the means to come to my home are of little comfort.
I wake up in the night and exclaim, breathless, “JARED!” before I think about it, before I am awake even, to reach over to find my 2026 safe space exactly where he has been for the past twenty-one years. Jared, without fail, either reaches over for me or says, “I’m here,” without exhaustion for the repetition that doesn’t disappear year after year, seemingly decade after decade. He knows my ghost; he has met him face-to-face. Jared is unafraid.
And still, I am unsure which terror is stronger: the idea that this individual will potentially end up in a mass pauper’s grave someday, or the idea that he may show up to cause me or my family harm. Both are true: I am afraid of him, and I am afraid for him.
And whatever the trauma-bond, I still say there was love.
