In an attempt to keep my spirits up the past few weeks I have been creating some jewelry! So far this week I have been working with cabochons, filagree, images and vials to create interesting victorian style pendants. The cabochons are fun to play with and enable me to create a wide variety of different looks with similar materials. Below are three pendants I recently put up. The Lady of Shalott pendant has a filagree backing on it that wraps around to the front, giving the whole thing a more victorian look.

The next one has a set of gears underneath the glass and a dark blue artisan paper behind those for added depth. Silvery glass beading adorns the frame of the pendant for some added intricacy.

This last one I made with the same blue paper backing as the one above but overlaid with micah and lace and topped with a small coordinating bead.

I have been having a lot of fun making these items while I rest. The one I am currently working on (not listed yet) is one of my favorites. It’s an Alice in Wonderland themed pendant.

The pendant begins with a small glass vial wrapped in gears and filagree and filled with a “Drink Me” card and a picture of Alice from the book. Then copper and bronze wire are interlaced around the neck to add color. Finally, the cork has a small bead hanging off it into the vial and attaches to the bronze chain. Above the vial is a small skeleton key. This one took quite some time to complete but was a ton of fun to make. I plan to make a series of Alice themed necklaces and earrings.

My next attempt will be Chesire Cat earrings I think. I will have to paint the cat image on the back of the cabochon and then place it into the earring base. Should be entertaining, I hope!

Thank you all for the sweet messages, texts, and emails. I appreciate you reaching out to me during my time of struggle.

Most of the time I am cognizant that there is much in my life to be thankful for. Despite having had this migraine every day for the past ten months, despite being unable to pursue my dreams to their full potential, I realize I am generally healthy. I am blessed with a loving and devoted family, the world’s most cuddly cat, and a partner who spends his time actively trying to make me laugh every day. I am not sure how I became such a Pollyanna. I certainly wasn’t in the beginning. All I know is I seem to be able to keep a pretty cheery outlook most of the time.

Except when I don’t.

Yesterday I didn’t. It had been a bad pain week and I have had a cold so I am sure that played into it but yesterday found me sobbing for hours by myself in my room. Every single frustration and sorrow welled up and poured out and wouldn’t be reasoned with. I could not cheer myself up or calm myself down. Worst of all it was the dumbest thing in the world that set me off. Jealousy.

Yesterday my brother innocuously responded to a family email thread with the statement that he and his significant other both have really good jobs that pay pretty well. This statement is something a big sister is supposed to look at with pride and think “you go bro!” but I just sat there and stared at it. I read that sentence again and again and at some point realized I was crying, uncontrollably. I tried like to hell to figure out why the statement had set me off so badly and I finally reasoned I was crying because I wanted to have a really good job that pays pretty well. I was crying because I was jealous of my own brother.

I wish I could tell you that once I figured it out I was able to climb back into my Pollyanna outlook but unfortunately the discovery was something that crawled under my skin and lived there for the rest of the day. Each time I would begin to calm down and look for a distraction my mind would helpfully remind me that my career in law is stalled because I have a disability and can’t work. It would remind me that at nearly 40 I still need a driver. It would sigh over the plans I had and compare them to my new plans and point out the wide chasms between the two. It was a long day.

Finally after spending many hours feeling sorry for myself I ended up putting on Pride and Prejudice and losing myself in the victorian pursuit of eligible bachelors. I went to bed and put away the day.

As is true with most things I felt better after a good night’s sleep.

I suppose it’s normal and natural to have otherwise innocuous statements send you into a death spiral of despair, it just seemed so silly to respond this way.