Unraveled

Anna slid the knitting needle out of the stitches, watching as the yarn spread out, no longer constrained by her hands. Setting the needle aside, Anna took a deep breath, then pulled on the free end of her yarn. One stitch popped away, then another, and another. Gently, she wrapped the yarn around her fingers and began winding it into a ball.

As she tugged on the yarn, slowly ripping out the stitches, Anna thought about all of the time she had spent - and perhaps wasted - on this failed blanket. Row after row disappeared as the ball grew larger. Anna thought of the first day she had bought the yarn. Her best friend had just announced her pregnancy, and it seemed like a lovely idea to knit her a baby blanket. Somewhere along the way, though, her friend commented on the colours of the nursery, and Anna realized that the blanket wouldn't look right, so she put it away in favour of a new ball of yarn. Months later, a co-worker was pregnant, and Anna picked up the blanket again. The woman quit, though, so there was no baby shower, and Anna put it away once more.

Years later, Anna's life was more than complicated, and she pulled out the knitting, hoping that it might calm her nerves, but she found even knitting couldn't soothe her soul, so she put it away again, hoping that she hadn't left any bad karma attached to a baby item.

Finally, she had decided to clear out all of her old projects, and came across the blanket. Anna really did make an effort to finish it - she found a second ball of yarn, and even started to use it, but she simply had no attachment to the project. It was boring. It was time-consuming. It wasn't anything special. So, in an effort to clear up her clutter, Anna decided to rip it out. Perhaps she'd start again... perhaps she'd use the yarn in another project.

A tear slipped down her cheek as she tucked in the end of the yarn, the ball in her lap and the blanket only a memory. For something she didn't really like, it was awfully sad to give it up.