Margreet made a glass of tea and sat down to knit in her rocking chair. She was already making progress. The back and front parts were ready and the pattern for the sleeves she had calculated and described. The first sleeve was now halfway done, the increase in the number of stitches was simple.

She had recently taken a notebook and turned it into a pattern notebook. In it she had made a clear list of the numbers of the needles, in which she had to increase a stitch on each side. Every time she finished a needle, she put a cross in the notebook next to the number of that needle. To prevent her from having to count the number of knitted needles again and again to find out which needle she was on, she worked with small pins. She fastened these in every tenth needle, with a slightly larger one at the fiftieth needle, and an even larger one for the hundredth. It was a simple system, but it worked perfectly and made her work easier and therefore more enjoyable. And every now and then she would take a moment to count the number of stitches in a needle. In spite of her nice system, things still went wrong sometimes, but never seriously. She sometimes had to return a needle, but never had to remove a whole piece of fabric.

There was something else about her knitting that she found difficult. She had a tendency to rush herself. Even so bad, that if she had an hour to spare, she would determine at the beginning of the hour how many needles she could knit in that hour. And then, every so often, she would calculate how many minutes she needed per needle. What irritated her about this, besides the fact that she was rushing herself, was that the sleeve was getting wider. This meant that more and more stitches had to be done on the needle, which meant that she needed a little more time per needle. So hurry up!

When she thought about it, she had a tendency to hate herself. Why was she so obsessive about this? Why wasn't she able to just relax and knit? She knew the cause, she had always been pushed to be better and faster. Her mother had been an expert at that, and unknowingly she had taken over from her and started to push herself to be better and faster as well. Perfectionism, being an accelerator, even in areas where she could not be. Always striving: better, faster! And no matter how good she was, it was never good enough. Where at first her mother was her slave driver, she had soon become her own slave driver.

And now, now she knew very well that she didn't have to push herself, didn't even have to prove herself. Her mother could no longer violate her, and she did not have to do so herself. She was free! But around this problem, she felt far from free. Every time she picked up her knitting, she decided to knit quietly. But there was a compulsion in her to go back to work at pace anyway and to hurry up herself.

She hadn't talked to Huib about it yet. She knew what he would say: there is a mountain of wounds behind it, it has to heal first. Somehow she understood that too, but she couldn't stand it, that she couldn't manage to just make a decision to just do things differently now, now at this moment. Or, indeed, she made that decision a lot of times, but she couldn't manage to stick to it. She knew she could enjoy it, and in a way she did, but each time she couldn't manage not to let herself be propelled by that compulsion that controlled her. Yes, it would eventually pass on its own, but damn it, she did run into it every time. Every time she picked up her knitting, she felt herself being trapped in it again. When would everything behind it finally be fixed?

Her frustrations formed an emotional ball in her stomach. She was closer to crying than laughing, and yet... yet she suddenly burst into laughter. She laughed at herself: 'Greta Greta, piece of impatience that you are!' She suddenly realized more deeply, that those compulsive thoughts had come from years of wounding upon wounding. All those wounds hooked together. She could hardly expect that to be over in a week, could she? Ha! But that was exactly what she wanted so badly!

Margreet sighed deeply. Healing from all the shit from the past was nice, but also intensely difficult! She grabbed her cell phone, set an alarm for a few minutes before coffee time and decided not to look at the time anymore. That had to help, this way she couldn't calculate how much time she needed per needle. Satisfied with her clever plan, she picked up her knitting again. Relax, she admonished herself, take it easy, there's no hurry! It went well, until halfway down the needle, then unnoticed she began to speed up again....

.

While Margreet sat knitting and struggling with her compulsive thoughts, Lisa plowed through her clothing boxes. She didn't find it easy to sort through, to choose what could stay and what she wanted to get rid of. Yes, with those special dresses it had been obvious. With her regular clothes, it was trickier. In fact, she just didn't know what she liked.

She decided to put all her sweaters in a row and ask Sjaak for help. He was already making a drawing of their idea for the upper floor and the attic. And just like with Huib and Margreet they would make an extension, according to the idea of the guest house. A laundry room and an open drying room. And the barn would become one unit with the laundry room.

Unnoticed she compared this house, as it would become, with the house where she and Henk had lived. That had been a nice house, but rigid, impersonal and cold. She had found it beautiful in the sense of chic, but it did not have such a fine warm feel as this house. This house was alive. Sjaak was alive, and she was allowed to learn to live. She smiled. The big difference between then and now became more and more apparent and she decided thankfully that she was now on the right side of life.

To chapter 105. Renewed friendship

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