Knitting it together

I actually wrote this last year during the summer while I was still in therapy and shortly after finishing the poncho.

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I've never thought of knitting as a form of therapy. I knew that it helped me relax and that often my mind would clear. Just recently I was overjoyed when my passion helped me to start healing from childhood abuse.

A few years ago I bought a book of sweater designs. I got it with the intention of knitting myself one. This would have been my first task of this size and this complex. I took the book to my mom's to show her what my next project would be. She instantly fell in love with the sweater on the cover. I decided that my mom would receive my first adult size sweater as a Christmas present.

I went and bought the required 11 skeins of yarn(in a color she had pointed out as one of her favorites), the three pairs of needles, cable needles, buttons thread and stitch markers. I was so excited I could hardly wait to get home to start. I just knew this was going to make my mom happy.

Let me describe this sweater. It was a double moss stitch polo, with cabling where the button wholes would be. For me this project was like building a pyramid, climbing Mt. Everest and having any experience. It was huge, monumental, scary and exciting.

I worked every day on that sweater. Ripped out stitches, restarted it countless times trying to make it perfect. I finally finished it three weeks before Christmas. I was so pleased with myself. The sweater was gorgeous, so much that I had to try it on. I took it to work the next day and showed it to everyone. No one got by me without seeing this wonderful creation! By the end of the day I was very tempted to keep the sweater. Maybe I would make my mom a scarf. In the end, I wrapped it and waited.

On Christmas day I was so excited and nervous. I couldn't wait to see how happy I'd made my mom. I just KNEW she would love it as much as I did. I KNEW she would be overjoyed by me remembering her wanting that sweater. Maybe she'd even notice how much of my heart I put into the making of HER gift.

When she opened it, her response was "Oh. I wasn't expecting that. Thank you." That was it? That was the response I had been holding my breath for? That was the show of appreciation for all my hard work and effort? Honestly, her response didn't surprise me, but it did hurt. right to my core.

The nest day she decided to wear her sweater. After about an hour she started complaining. The sweater was too heavy on her shoulders. The stitch wasn't exactly like she thought it was. The sleeves were too long for her short arms and she had to roll them up. What my mom failed to realize was that in order to make the size she needed, the sleeves would be longer. She also has ALWAYS had to roll the sleeves on all of her sweaters. My heart hurt even more.

The following November she brought over a box of clothes she didn't want anymore. I worked at a shelter for women and children escaping domestic violence and would take the clothes in for our clothing closet. I always looked them over first. This time I decided to do it while she was still visiting. At the bottom was her sweater, my masterpiece. I looked up and my mom looked away. She said sh couldn't wear it so she didn't need to keep it. Not once did she meet my eyes. She left shortly after my discovery. I took her sweater and crumpled it up. I unfolded it and thought how could give away something I had worked so hard and so lovingly on? How could she give back my love.

I decided to keep the sweater. I even wore it once or twice, but every time I did I wanted to cry. I put it in one of my yarn bags and left it there. I couldn't look at it or even touch it. At the time I didn't recognize that this sweater had taken on a different form for me. It became the visual reminder of how little my mom thought of my hard work. How easy it was for her to dismiss my feelings. How little she thought of me. How nothing I did was never good enough. It represented all my childhood memories and feelings.

About six months later, I began to dissect the sweater. I ccarefully undid the hem and the seams. Then I began on the sleeves. At first slowly, carefully, but then the speed increased and I was no longer unraveling a sweater. I was letting out all my hurt and anger. I cried over every last stitch. I remembered all the awful, horrible things my mom had said to or about me for as long as I could remember. At that point I actually found myself hating and resisting the yarn. I didn't care if the sweater cam unravelled neatly or if I tore the yarn into pieces. I finally got it rolled into balls ad put it in a bag intending to make myself a poncho.

At the beginning of that net Summer my mom told me she would like me to make her a poncho. I couldn't look at her, but told her I was going to use the yarn from her sweater and make myself one. I was sitting close enough to her that she actually reached out and smacked me on the arm and called me a brat.

Thee yarn has sat for over two years. I picked it up one day and started casting on. I knit about two rows and had to stop. I was becoming ill. My stomach muscles were cramping, my head was pounding and my shoulders were tense. This shocked me! Knitting had always been a way to relax my body and mind. Never had it caused type of reaction. I still had not recognized what those balls of yarn meant to me.

I had been in therapy for about 2 years and had been steadly working on my feelings towards my mom and my fears of being like her. I had finally come to an inner understanding that I am not connected to my. I had finally come to understand that I am my own person with the right to have my own thoughts and feelings. I had come to know myself better and to stand up for my rights, beliefs and values. I was beginning to understand that I could be a separate person and that my mom's thoughts, feelings and reactions are hers to own, NOT MINE TO TAKE CARE OF!

Out of the blue I felt this intense need to start that poncho again. I began working on it feverishly, almost obsessed with finishing it. I had no idea why, but it felt vital. That if I didn't I would lose something valuable

Then it hit me. Came right out and stared at me plain as day. I wasn't just knitting something for myself. I was actually re knitting my life. I was taking something that I had made for my mom and reworking it into something for me, for my enjoyment. The yarn and poncho were now representing me reclaiming the lost pieces of myself. Every stitch was like rewording everything negative or harmful thing she had ever said or did to me and changing into the opposite. I had taken an object that wasn't good enough for her(me aka the sweater) and was making it into something just right for me. With every stitch it felt like pieces of me were healing. Again I cried while working with this yarn. This time it was grief for all that I could have been and happiness for all I have become. I was finally knitting myself back together. finally understood that the yarn had meant so much more to me that I had thought.

In the beginning it was hope and longing to be found worthy and to be loved. In the middle it was dark, hurtful, hateful. Needing to be hid away because it wasn't good enough. In the end it has become freed, reworked and made beautiful.. It is acceptance and understanding of a true self. It is now free to be what it was meant to be.

This yarn was not meant to be a heavy, weighed down sweater. It was meant to be a light, carefree, airy poncho. Just as I am not meant to be what my mother said neither am I a copy of her. I AM MY OWN WOMAN!!!!! Meant to be who I am with all my emotions, thoughts and faults. Loved for what I've been through and accepted as I am.

I have finally knitted my inner self back together.