Hockey Pucks and Wool Wastelands

Crocheting.

Knitting.

Bread making.

She had tried it all, but nothing was fitting, nothing was working and she knew she had to. She needed something to relax. She kept feeling like she was getting sick. She knew it was just the pandemic getting to her.

This was going to be her moment, her year. 

She was finally going to get that promotion she wanted.

She was going to be successful and her parents wouldn’t have an excuse to come out here and argue that she should go back to the private sector. She didn’t want to. She liked her job in the press office of the State Department. There was something about the madness of Washington that made her excited and want to work for the agenda. 

“Carol!”

Carol stuck her head out of her office door. “Yes, what is it?”

“We need you in the press room. You need to sub in.”

Carol took a deep breath. Subbing in for the Press Secretary of the State Department had been her dream. She knew it was madness to be hoping for it in the middle of a pandemic. She knew she should be glad she hadn’t been laid off, that not much in her life had changed. So many of her friends were struggling with their jobs and Carol didn’t have to worry about her job, only her mind when it wouldn’t turn off at night.

Carol closed the tab where she’d been researching knitting patterns. Again. She picked up her folder and followed her assistant through the corridors.

“You’ve done this before,” Bess told her. “You know exactly what to do and you know how to field the questions.”

Carol nodded. “I’ve got this.”

“You do.”

Bess opened the door. Carol took a deep breath and walked to the podium. She opened her folder on the lectern.

“Good afternoon. I have a couple updates for you and then I’ll field your questions. The tentative trip to Moscow that’s been penciled in for months is now going to be a Zoom conference. The leaders will still be there and we’re hoping productive talks will still happen. The lunches won’t happen given the nature of the changes…”

***

Carol was supposed to be finished for the day. Instead she was alternating between her emails, far too complicated knitting patterns and recipes for sourdough bread. There was something about knitting and bread that kept drawing her in, even though she kept failing, couldn’t focus and could feel everything collapsing. The only thing she wanted to do was her job, but she couldn’t stay focused. It was why she always had multiple tabs and documents open and the IT department was constantly telling her it was a bad idea, that her computer wouldn’t freeze as much if she didn’t overload it. Carol couldn’t seem to get it through her brain. She knew it was going to be a constant struggle, but what did any of it matter when she felt like everything was about to break from her control. 

That was the part that worried her.

That was the part that was constant.

She went home because her computer read 5pm, not because she wanted to. She wanted to stay and feel productive, not go home to a quiet apartment where there was nothing for her but white walls and a dark TV. 

Carol drove home because she was expected to.

She sat with a glass of red wine because she was expected to and someone felt she deserved the relaxation at the end of the day. She didn’t want it. She wanted to keep going until she was near exhaustion to make sure her mind would let her sleep. 

She hated feeling unproductive. It was the reason she needed a hobby. Which brought her back to where everything had started, to her anger at the loaf of bread that had seemed fluffy, but her oven had turned into a hockey puck. On some level she knew it was her fault, that she’d done something wrong in the kneading or the baking, but for some reason the bigger part of her brain thought it was her oven and she had nothing to do with it. 

She shook her head. She was going mad and there was nothing she could do because she was the one who had wanted this life. She was the one who had broken the rules her parents wanted. She was the one who had dismissed their arguments of changing jobs before the pandemic because she wanted to be a part of the fight. As someone who had never been great at science and wasn’t in the medical field at all, this was one of the few places where she could actually do some good. 

She took a sip of wine, knowing it was early but feeling like she couldn’t stomach another cup of coffee. She had planned to watch an episode of her favorite TV show, but instead she sat on the couch and stared at the dark screen. Her reflection stared back at her and she looked away from it. She felt like the reflection was staring her down, the way her mother always did when they argued about Carol’s future. 

Carol sighed and took another sip of wine. She knew this was the time when most people would use their hobbies to wind down. She drank wine on her couch as the sun set outside her window. She could still smell the burnt bread from her last attempt. Hockey pucks, loaves burnt to a crisp that seemed fine before they’d gone into the oven. 

Sometimes it felt like a metaphor for her life. One where her parents felt like they still had power over her. She felt like she was the person who should be fighting against them, but she couldn’t believe that they wanted to ruin her life.

She looked over at the wasteland of wool that sat in the corner of the couch. The unraveled remains of her last attempt at knitting. 

She didn’t want to believe it had come to this. She wanted to call Bess and rant, but Carol knew her assistant didn’t want to hear her complaints. Even though Bess was a friend, she had told Carol she was going to be on a Zoom call all night with her boyfriend. Earlier, Carol had shaken her head, smiled, and had known that was the end of it. She wished Bess wasn’t focused on her boyfriend, but Carol understood that everyone had different priorities – especially now. And if Bess wanted to take her time and put it toward a relationship Carol didn’t understand there wasn’t anything wrong with that. 

Carol needed to talk to someone. 

Someone who could help her through the wasteland of failure.

She took a breath. She had to remember her work life wasn’t a shambles, she had family and friends, and in the middle of a pandemic, she should count herself lucky for that. Not everyone had those opportunities. 

Not everyone was lucky enough to have what she did. 

She picked up the phone and called her cousin Meghan was always up for a rant.

Meghan also happened to be brilliant at bread making.