Did I Do Something Stupid?

The other day I accidentally burned a small hole in the blanket on our bed.  It is not an expensive blanket, or even the one usually kept on our bed.

I will interject here to say please hold off on your advice to me to quit smoking.  And stop smoking in the house, and especially stop smoking in the house and on my bed.  I know it all.

Back to the tiny hole.

I tried to arrange the blanket so the hole was hidden, at the foot of the bed.  No go.  It is too centered due to my bed-making skills of turning down the blanket and the top sheet together.  That adds length which makes the hole fairly well centered.

I was watching TV and my eyes kept going to that hole.  It was taunting me so much I had to go find my small and very unimpressive sewing kit.  I searched every place I could think of and the sewing kit would not reveal itself.

I went back to watching TV.

The hole kept screaming at me.

I stomped out of bed and realized the sewing kit was in my office.  I victoriously stomped back to my room, sat by the hole and opened my kit.

No needles.  Not one.  Not even the ones I keep for my sewing machine.

I put the sewing kit on my dresser and moved the  papers on my bed over the hole.

While watching TV, I imagined the hole and what it would look like when I finally did find a freaking needle.

It will still be there.  A flaw.  A noticeable one.  A tiny little closed up hole.  A small void stitched together.

It wont be perfect.  It will never be perfect again.  No matter how many ways I make the bed I will notice it.  This flaw.

 I had the thought that we were born flawless in a zipped up plastic bag from Target and then slowly we get little flaws that happen along the way.  A scar from a skinned knee, or a surgery.  Invisible scars carved on our insides from life's pains and pleasures.

Proof positive that nothing is perfect.

we all still try to be perfect.

 I meditate, I cleanse crystals in salt water under a full moon, I go to therapy.  I am flawed.

My life is full of tiny little sewn up patches.  Everyone has them.  We just do not always see them.

Sometimes we are compelled to draw attention to our patches.

The house is not clean, and we quickly apologize to our friend who rang the doorbell.

"Sorry, my house is a mess"

You begin to look around and notice the mess when at first all you saw was your friend.

If you have a good enough friend they reply, "Please, I don't give a shit.  Let's have coffee." and you step over whatever unmentionable was previously mentioned.

I have a quilt that  my grandmother made me.  I do not use it anymore.  It is safely tucked away inside a plastic zippered bag that another blanket arrived in.

The quilt is beautiful, and old now, and has a few small holes and tears in it.  It is loved and it is fragile.  Too fragile I have decided.  So it is only brought out as a last resort blanket.  I am always happy to see it and always look for the corner where my grandmother embroidered her name and the date.

Some day we will all be too fragile.  We will all be fraying at the ends, and so stitched together we could be in a Tim Burton movie.  Now we are not.

Now we patch up.

And if we do not have the tools to immediately patch up, well, currently my dog is doing a fine job of covering the offensive hole.

That is good enough for me.