The summer before college, we were required to read Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. In my freshman seminar class, we all had to write essays about the things we carried. The essays were, largely, about the emotional baggage we had accumulated so far in our eighteen-ish years.
I think it’s fairly obvious to everyone what their own emotional baggage is. Some of the physical items we tend to keep and carry with us are just as telling, though.
This particular item I have carried through 3 college moves (and back home), the move to the apartment and then the move to the house. If you had asked me about important objects, I never would have mentioned it.
Yes, that would be a Minnie Mouse latch hook rug. I’ve toted it around with me for probably fifteen years now – and just finished it tonight. And I have no idea what to do with it now that it’s done.
I couldn’t help but wonder what it said about me that I’ve lugged this thing around for so long unfinished. Of course, it was living alongside another unfinished latch hook rug, a half-finished painting and a half-knit scarf.
I, apparently, like to start things but don’t finish them. And, I don’t like to admit to myself that I probably won’t finish them either.
I DO THAT ALL THE TIME!! I have like 2 unfinished latch hook rugs myself! I made the ones I finished into pillows. I think that's the best thing to do with them! Good luck with your painting and scarf lol
ReplyDeleteI had a cross-stitch pattern that I started back in SEVENTH GRADE, that I just finished about a year ago....umm, that was about a 12 year span between start and finish!!
ReplyDeleteAnd now that I've finished it? It's folded up in my cross-stitch kit awaiting a frame...and will probably always stay there. I'm not sure where I would hang it, or if I WOULD hang it anymore. I might consider selling it. I just don't know. So in my closet it sits....forevermore LOL!
I know your frustration!