“With great power comes great responsibility.” As a crafty person, that phrase really resonates with me. When you’re crafty, you’re the only one who can whip up the kind of cute gifts that everybody wants – refrigerator magnets, corsages, tiny boxes to store crafts, seasonal vests – so I guess this is just my cross to bear.
Don’t get me wrong, I love crafting with every fiber of my being. But sometimes all the demands everyone places on you as “the crafty one” can be a bit much. Every time there’s a bridal shower or a craft fair, people turn to me looking for the hottest crafts for the occasion. Every time a small box needs painting, or an ornament needs glittering, all eyes are on me. Honestly, it can get exhausting, but I know we all have a reason for being here on Earth, and this is my reason.
I get it – I’m pretty handy with a glue gun. But maybe I don’t always want to give input on your crochet project, or help you decide what size googly eyes to put on your pet rock. Maybe some days I just want to be a regular woman like you. People don’t always see underneath this crafty veneer.
Imagine you’re a master surgeon. Do you think that, after 18 hours in surgery, you’d still want to be performing more surgeries at the end of the day when you get home? Of course not. That’s what it feels like when I close the door to my craft room and my kids ask me to help them with their hook-and-loop potholder. And I love doing hook-and-loop crafts.
At the end of the day, I just have to separate work from play. Crafts count as my work, and my workday ends at 5pm, just like yours. Or at least it should. It’s hard to resist the desperate pleas of a novice crafter, or a friend with unsteady hands.
Someone will call me as late as 11pm asking for help with her daughter’s first communion veil. Or they’ll have a wreath emergency the night before their Christmas party. I keep sprigs of rosemary around year round, because honestly, you just never know.
I also have these lavender bath salts I made and put into hand-painted mason jars, in case of an emergency. While I finally have a moment’s rest from all the craziness, I think I’m gonna kick back in the tub with a bar of my homemade soap on a rope.
It’s hard out here for a crafter. But I’m bound to my duty, and it’s just my cross to bear.
