Unravel and Reknit

    There are times in life when we are faced with change and cringe away. Or forced to change or perish. Or faced with change and choose to take it as an opportunity to rebuild a stronger, better fitting Self. This winter has been a time of forced changes. Some I forced myself, others were forcibly thrown into my face. I admit, I felt myself unravelling. Like a sweater caught on a thorn as I made a mad dash through a gloomy forest in a vain attempt to escape the deranged killer that was hot on my tail. A sweater, unraveling, becoming smaller, less structured, becoming a tangled mass of multicolored yarn. That is how I felt, like a snarled wad of grubby yarn violently yanked from a comfortable old sweater. Few aspects of my sense of self did not take a hit, much of how I defined myself felt torn to ragged shreds. I threw myself into manic bursts of home repair and worked out like a freak. I did everything I could to keep my body busy, and pushed myself to exhaustion in an attempt to quell the voices in my head battering me with a sense of failure and rejection. Of course physical exhaustion does not equal silence. My nights were tormented by a gibbering brain, running in circles, preventing the exhaustion from dragging me into the oblivion of sleep. It was all I could to to gather the shredded threads of myself into a clump and hold it tight to my chest to protect it from further damages.
    Months of clinging to my sense of self, holding fast to what I knew were the true building materials of the real me. There were times when I would curl into a tight ball, a vain attempt to protect my vital areas from further assault and vicious rendings. Through it all, I knew I would survive this. I knew I would not be defeated. But I knew that reclaiming my sense of self would be a task worthy of Hercules. And still I clung to those unraveled bits of me.
    I did finally resurface. I took the tangled, dingy threads of myself and washed them gently. I cleansed them of the accumulated murk that had dimmed their natural, vibrant colors. I carefully untangled the miles of yarn, snipping away sections that were too damaged, too knotted to salvage. I spent hours rolling the yarn into tidy balls of clean, reclaimed, useable, sturdy material. Then I commenced the arduous reknitting. It hasn't been easy, I am working without a pattern, playing it by ear, improvising. I am reknitting the very fibers of  my Self. I am making a streamlined version of Self; smaller, more compact, more intense, more vibrant. I am reknitting myself into my true form of random beauty, unexpected peculiarities, unique style, intense color and exciting pattern. It is a project that is well underway now that I have disentangled, cleansed and repaired the raw materials of Me. It will take care and gentle handling at times, for the material does have some delicate, fragile sections. It will take diligence to assure that any future unraveling will be intentional and to improve the end product, not violent and damaging at the hands of another. It will take time, energy and effort, for no true work of art is easily or quickly finished. But I know the end result will be my masterpiece.