Knitting is life? Knitting of life? Life is like knitting?

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!