The forgiveness of yarn

It took a little memory jog to realize that it was this time of year nine years ago when life as I knew it began to unravel. And that's exactly the way my mind put it together - life, as I knew it, unraveling. The fella to whom I said "I do" ... well, he didn't. Commence unraveling.

But the truth is, life is always in a ravel/unravel state.

The art of unraveling is something that becomes very evident when one learns to knit. You'll get through part of a project and find the flaws ... and before you move on to the next row, you unravel the whole damn thing and start over.

Making it right. Making it better. Learning from your mistakes.

We are all, my friends, continually raveling and unraveling. And thank heaven for that.

I'm always making mistakes. Big ones, little ones, medium-size ones. Some of my best lessons were the result of mistakes. Lessons about how much I deserve to be valued (in every relationship, not just the romantic ones), or how strong I am. Lessons about traveling light and being resilient. Lessons of self-care and truth telling.

It's worth it, in the end. We find ourselves when we're willing to unravel.

Which is a long way of saying that I know lots of people who are at this very moment in a period of great transition. Looking at the knitwork of their lives thus far, it's time to figure out how far back to unravel before continuing on. And the beautiful thing about life is that we get to do this.

Yarn, and life, is forgiving.

It's okay to make a mistake. It's important to learn from it. It's wise to ask forgiveness. (Most of the time). It's imperative to move on.