Over the last two weeks I’ve had tonnes of time to explore
and relax and knit. Knitting I love. It is repetitive, which can be boring,
annoying tedious and frustrating, which is soothing. Looking back at some notes
I have on my first pair of socks that I ever made, I realised that knitting is
a hobby that I turn to when I’m down, or when I’m feeling the need to just make
life happier from whichever level it currently sits at. I started knitting my
first pair of socks the day after my grandmother died. I needed a distraction,
and knitting a pair of socks for the first time did it.
Looking at my notes, I was also reminded that the first sock
didn’t go perfectly. The second sock in the pair was better. This week I made
myself a hat. The first time I started it, I managed to mess up the pattern
some how. So, like any knitter that can’t figure out where they messed up or
how to fix it, I ripped it all out and started again.
Having to start the hat again, (and all the other projects
that I’ve had to restart from scratch) got me thinking about life. Someone once
said to me that if I wasn’t happy with life then I should do something about
it. I began to think, that is sort of what I am doing here. I wasn’t happy
working in a mall selling clothing. It’s not that it’s a bad job, it just
wasn’t in the field that I went to school for. I never thought that I’d be one
of the people forced to work outside of my field. So I made the choice to go
somewhere that I could work in my field. In a way, I started again. I didn’t love
it when I got here, there are days when I still don’t like it at all, but then
I needed to do something about it. It is a bit like starting a project, not
being entirely happy with it and then starting over again, or making changes to
be happy with it.
Is this a badly-
constructed simile? Perhaps. But it got me
thinking. Being unhappy with something in life the first time doesn’t mean that
I should give up. Rip it out and start again. When I get it right, everything
will fall into place and I’ll have a great hat!