During one of the most uncertain periods of my life, I discovered just how helpful knitting could be for stress relief. It gave me something tangible to focus on when everything else felt unsettled.
Why I used to feel defensive about knitting
“I knit.” I used to say those words with a bit of guilt or somewhat defensively. It was as if I had to justify having a hobby people didn’t associate with my age group. For some reason, people tend to correlate knitting with grey-haired grandmas sitting in a rocking chair, needles clicking away as they magically create an afghan out of balls of yarn. That’s not me nor is it any of the people I know who knit. Most of my knitting friends are actually younger than me and more than one of them wear Doc Martins on a regular basis.
I taught myself how to knit about 10 years ago because I wanted a craft that was a little more portable than the cross-stitching I was doing. I have always loved doing crafts and making things but most of the craft activities I did couldn’t be hauled to the airport or done while watching the telly. I will never regret my impulsive purchase of a cheesy ‘teach yourself how to knit’ kit because I can shove my project in my bag and knit on the bus on the way to work.
Why am I telling you this? This isn’t a knitting blog. This is a blog about….Wait, what is this blog about?
Knitting through an uncertain time
I’m telling you this because, right now, knitting is one of the few things keeping me grounded.
I’m back in the US because the visa situation did not work out this time. Deferring my dissertation did not affect my graduation, as I had been promised, but it had a much bigger consequence: it made transferring my student visa to a work visa impossible. Lesson learned — explore every possible consequence before making a major decision.
I’ve been fighting a constant state of unhappiness and feeling out of place in the country where I was born and raised. I’m eight hours behind the time zone I belong in and thousands of miles from friends I, quite abruptly, had to leave behind.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that I am able to be with my family and will soon get to see my daughter but I miss my life. I miss every aspect of it, including the tourists and the unbearable heat on the Tube in the summer.
The thing that is keeping me sane is knitting. I knit for hours throughout the day. I knitted throughout the journey from London to Portland, OR. I’ve finished two pairs of socks and a shawl and started another pair of socks within the past three weeks.
I knit because writing has proven to be woefully unsuccessful. It’s something I was already struggling with because of stress. I knit because there is little else to do in the town I am in. I knit because I cannot job hunt all day and I don’t want to start binge watching shows on Netflix. I knit because it focuses my mind and calms my nerves. It allows me to think and plan. I knit because it keeps me from thinking too hard about things that make me sad.
I’m sure that things in my life will eventually get sorted. I’m hopeful that I will be back home soon and living the life I started in London. Until then, I’m just going to keep knitting.
A note from 2026: I wrote this in 2015, after an immigration setback forced me to leave London unexpectedly. I did eventually make it back—and, many years later, became a British citizen. I’ve left the original story largely unchanged because it captures exactly how uncertain that period felt.
