Unraveled (pt.1)

One of my major lifestyle flaws – of which there are many – is my apparent inability to finish anything. Small, large, everywhere in between; my life is pock-marked with remnants of unfinished projects. I have a painting that was reframed weeks ago sitting on my kitchen table, because I haven’t put nails in the wall yet to hang it. I still have five boxes packed with papers and candles and music from my move. My move eleven months ago. I have bags of scraps for future crafty projects. I have a college transcript covering four years of music school that includes every degree requirement except one.

I have little pieces of ideas lying around, in my house and in my head, partially written, partially thought-out, partially finished. I have a blog that I love, yet I can’t seem to dig up the words any more. The problem isn’t that I feel like my life is unraveling, the problem is that it’s never been raveled.

Six years ago my family received the news that my Aunt Patty, my mom’s older sister, had been diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s difficult to describe what hearing that news feels like. My extended family is not particularly close, although we’re not particularly distant either, and even if I didn’t know her well, my aunt has always been a strong support to my mom. So feelings were mixed. I was sad and scared and disappointed that I didn’t know her better. I was faced with her mortality and my mother’s anxiety and my own guilt over feeling angry about both.

It took rounds of chemotherapy and a double mastectomy, but my aunt beat her cancer. She’s a different person now and not just in a physical sense. I know more of who she is now than I’d ever gleaned from the annual family Thanksgiving or the obligatory Barnes & Noble gift cards at Christmas. I know she stands up for what is important to her. I know she’s strong and that she fought for her life. And I know she loves her husband and her children and her grandchildren. I know she loves my mom. I learned that I love her. Really love her. Even before I knew all the rest.

When I learned about her cancer diagnosis I was in my last year at college. I lived in standard student housing which meant I lived in a run-down duplex with three other girls, in an “illegal” room in the basement. I was the one who had to hide all her clothes when the landlord stopped by. He graciously pretended not to notice that I was always visiting.

Life with three other women in their early twenties is a lot like what you’d imagine it’s like. We shared stories and silverware and shoes. I learned that vegetarian bacon tastes like cardboard and that shower shoes are an investment. On one extremely funny and awkward occasion, I discovered that some people truly are terrified of ants in their pants.

We watched Sex and the City religiously and I learned that in a group of women there is usually a Charlotte, a Miranda and a Samantha. And that we have a little Carrie in each of us. I studied the art of liquid eye liner and practiced walking in heels that my size-10 feet were never meant to walk in.

Between all-night study sessions and lazy Saturday morning hangovers, I learned to crochet scarves out of multi-colored fibers and black velvet yarn. To stretch myself, I picked up a pattern for a blue and white gingham throw. It took weeks to crochet just half of the blanket, but I loved watching it widen row upon row. I was close to finishing it when my mom told me the news. And it was close beside me when we made the short drive to Ann Arbor to see how my aunt was doing.

Somewhere between driving from school to home to Ann Arbor, I decided that the blanket I was making must be for my aunt. I couldn’t offer much in the way of empathy and didn’t know how to offer the appropriate amount of sympathy. But I could finish this blue and white symbol of solidarity. I found myself pleased that I had stumbled upon such a worthy cause for my rather ragged attempt at craftiness. And in the car ride with my parents I proudly boasted about what a beautiful blanket I was making. I draped it over my arms and made my mother turn fully around in her seat just to look at how clever I was with my crochet hook. She spared it a single glance and then said it would be amazing – if I finished it.

And then she laughed. Not a happy, laughing-with-you kind of laugh. But a dismissive, indifferent laugh that came from a heart that was aching and a mother who knew her daughter’s track-record all too well. It is a laugh that has been bouncing around in the baggage I carry with me, echoing within my own deep, dark, doubt-filled places. It is an all-too-human laugh that I hear in the voices of strangers and co-workers and close friends. I can forget the words but it is the laugh I haven’t been able to silence.

I would desperately like to write that I finished my aunt’s blue and white blanket. That I proved my mother wrong. But I didn’t. Three houses later, it is still sitting incomplete in a bag beside my couch. I’ve woven and trimmed a few more strands of yarn, but like too many other things in my life, it remains unfinished. Not unraveled, but not quite raveled either. And three houses later, it is still too easy to rant about mommy issues or about hanging on to hurtful moments. But I would really like to stop being that person. I’d rather be the woman who looks forward, who doesn’t jump away from her past, but rather into her future; someone like my Aunt Patty.

(continued in Part 2)