Get the Monkey Off Your Back

Over seven years ago, I started working on a counted cross stitch piece of a Christmas stocking, and I originally wanted to complete it as part of my 30 by 30 challenge.

I think I originally started this with the intention of giving this to my sister for my nephew... but as mentioned in my 30by30 post, I bit wayyyy more off than I realized. So I half-assed worked on it.

I started it in early 2013, completed maybe 15% of it, and then life happened and it remained untouched for 5 years.  During those 5 years, I had zero time for hobbies as I was studying or networking for my new job.

Luckily, things calmed down in 2018, and a friend posted a "Kill the Monkey" challenge for the end of 2018.  The basic gist is - what is that one thing that you left unfinished, that one that stopped you from moving forward, because it was unfinished?

This popped up, clearly, as my Monkey.

But this time, the challenge group helped me estimate how long it would take me to complete.  I counted the remaining pieces of thread, and knowing that it took an hour per two strands (or 3 hours per one cluster of thread), and that I had 100 clusters remaining, I knew this would take 300 hours of my time to complete.  That was not doable in 90 days, but it was doable in 12 months. I just needed to complete 6 strings of thread per week to achieve my goal, and if I could get through 1-2 strings at a time, that required only 3-4 days or so of effort on my part.

But I kept slogging away at it, week after week.  Some weeks I was more productive, others I barely touched it.

And with 2 months to spare, I killed my monkey, on Sunday, October 27, 2019.

As my nephew is already 7 years old and has had his own Christmas stocking all this time, I decided to keep it for myself.  But instead of embroidering my name, I decided on 100%, for two reasons:

1. I am 100% perfect the way I am
2. I just took a DNA test, turns out I'm 100% that bitch. (lyrics by Lizzo)

I'm not sure how I feel after finishing it. I thought I would feel more elated, more weight-less, as in a weight taken off my shoulders or chest now that I finally finished this nagging piece, but I feel kinda the same.

And that's OK.  Because I committed to finishing something, I analyzed how much time it would take, and I gave myself a VERY reasonable deadline to finish it in... and every week, I kept re-upping my promise.

And I finished it.

No more monkey on my back... and now I'm open to the next project!