As fall comes on I already feel more like myself. My mind starts to breathe again, to imagine and make connections, and my hands get restless for a project. When I have time alone I love to stitch or knit or crochet and let my thoughts wander. This week has been rainy and cool so I’ve had the windows open to feel the breeze as I listen to Love is Colder than Death and work on my new cross stitch project.

It’s the perfect time of year for a little pagan crafting or Halloween prep, but my current project is for my oldest daughter. She’s almost aggressively cute and normal, so this cross stitch is also aggressively cute and normal. For various reasons, I made her pick a list of virtues to work on and she’s found it very helpful. She picked the 9 virtues of ADF druidry, and she thought it would be cool to have a fancy cross stitch of her values to put on her wall. So technically I’m doing a spooky pagan cross stitch, but using a cute heart alphabet pattern in shades of pink and blue so . . . not that spooky or pagan. She’s also very into her dad’s Scandinavian heritage lately so I’ll have to find a Norway inspired border to stitch around it. When I’m done it will be extremely cute and normal and she will love it.

It’s funny how people see punks and goths as little rebels trying to piss off their parents, but that only works if your parents are conventional and conservative. If your parents wear all black and decorate the house with dead bugs and skulls, dressing like Taylor Swift and signing up for extra gym classes might actually be the rebellious thing to do.

When I look at the internet, I see plenty of stories from people like me who are frustrated and misunderstood by their families but very little advice for the opposite situation. Considering the ratio of “normals” to alternative types this makes total sense, but it still leaves me a bit on my own when I try to be supportive. Some kids in this situation would just die of embarrassment when their families show up to things but my girl isn’t like that. More often, she worries she’s not creative or exciting enough, while also worrying about how to fit in with the normal kids she identifies with. She’s a bit like that blonde girl Marilyn on The Munsters, and we sometimes give her shit about it. But I want her to know we still love her even though she’s not a freak. So I make cute cross stitches and watch videos about hygge and koselig and tolerate her obsession with chill house music. The things we do for our kids. 😉