The Cupboard of Unfinished Things

It happens every year.

The wool balls enter the stores in preparation for winter, and my brain enters a frenzy of the most bizarre kind. You see, I’m not really a knitter. And yet, every year, as soon as the first wool balls hit the supermarket shelves…an orchestra made up of little tiny people begins to play inside my head. That’s how I know. I absolutely must start knitting something. Again.

And so I do. I sit down with a new pile of wool and my pretty pink hot water bottle, and I begin to knit the one. A precious new creation. Another chip off my creative spirit, that, ultimately, I always know, will be banished to the rickety cupboard of ‘unfinished things.’

It’s quite the comedy, really. Because I can’t actually knit, my choices of what to knit are always limited: a blanket made from a thousand hand-sized patches, or, yet another scarf. All the while, the little devil on my shoulder sits and quietly smiles. Because he knows. He knows it doesn’t really matter what I choose, and he also knows the reason why. (Ah, yes. There he is. Already preparing that nasty little cupboard. Sheesh.)

Well. There I was at the supermarket, once again with the wool, and I wouldn’t let any of that stop me. The decision was made. My little boy would quite like a scarf, and maybe knitting for him would give me that extra boost to save this one from the cupboard of impending doom.

But as I examined the stacked shelves—faced with a wall of fluffy, colourful possibilities— something came to me, something big. The reason. The truth that could have saved me the shame of every project that’s ever wagged it’s sweet, broken little tail into that big meanie of a cupboard over the years.

I’m not meant to finish.

I was never meant to finish, not any of it.

Maybe for some people, knitting is about creating something useful and beautiful. But, for me…it’s really not. Yes, it would be lovely to knit something of use. Lovely. But entirely unnecessary in the grand scheme of the life I’ve chosen.

For me, knitting is about the journey.

It’s about that blissful repetitive tune, the clickety-clack that somehow soothes me and brings me back into my body when I fly too far into the land of the perpetual dreamer. It’s a way for me to take one step (or one row). And then another. And then another. Rather than simply fly through life, looking for the greener grass that lives at the very top of a hill that I just may never get to.

Who cares if I don’t get to the top of that hill. The journey is lovely enough. It’s a journey that slows me down and reminds me to just…be here. In my body. On the couch. Knitting. Joyfully aware that this scarf— just like its many older siblings— will probably never be finished.