ear Second Wrap Cardigan,ear Second Wrap Cardigan,
I feel terrible writing this to you, but I have to.
I’m leaving you. Right away. I’m going to ravel your knitting, wind you back into balls, and pass you along to another knitter so that there can be some sort of future for you, because I assure you, there isn’t one here.
I know that you’re going to think this is harsh, and perhaps unfair, and who knows, maybe it is. I just know that I can’t work it out with you. I’ve tried, heaven knows I’ve tried, but all this time we’re spending together is a lie. You’re just not ever going to be a sweater that I like, and I can’t keep knitting on you like that’s not true, because it just gets both of our hopes up that someday there will be a real garment between us, and it’s time that we both admit that’s never going to happen.
I wish I could define the certain something, the thing or the moment that’s coming between us, but the truth is that I just hate your stinking guts. I’ve tried not to hate you, but despite how millions of couples are staying together for the sake of the children, a relationship filled with hate just isn’t something I need to do, because, dude, you’re yarn. Just yarn, and I’ve got lots more where you came from.
If it seems to you like I’ve led you on, I apologize. I know it’s been confusing. I did buy you. I did stand in that yarn shop in New York City on a beautiful spring day, and I did look at you, knit up into that wrap cardigan, and I did say, “Wow, I freakin’ love that sweater.” I did say it. I even remember saying that I thought you would look great with jeans. I know I said it, I know you have witnesses. The thing is, I think maybe I had wine with lunch that day, or maybe I was coming down with something, because now that I have you here in my hands, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what I saw in you. You’re pretty colors, I give you that, but—and I’m sorry if nobody’s mentioned this to you before—you’re a novelty yarn. I tried to pretend it’s not true, but you are.
You’ve got a big stinking bobble on your strand every thirty centimeters, and I don’t know how to talk about that. I thought when I saw you that the bobbles were interesting. I thought you were funky. I thought you were hip and fun, and I didn’t just overlook your bobbles, standing in that yarn shop, I embraced them. Now that we’ve been together a while, I can’t explain what I was thinking. I am not funky, or hip, and I think jeans and a clean T-shirt should be acceptable clothing for every occasion, and what’s further, I’ve never seen a reason to own more than one bra and four pairs of shoes, and that counts skates. What about that vision says “funky” to you? When people talk about accessorizing, I think about carrying a cup of coffee. Is that hip? No. No, my woolly friend, it’s not, and why on Earth some other feeling came over me while I was in that shop is beyond me. (I blame New York. There’s something about that place that makes you imagine you could dress better, and it’s best not to shop while you’re conflicted like that. It’s just confusing).
I know that after that day, the day that I stood in that shop, admired the sample, and then bought you, the friend I was with was skeptical. She didn’t say it, but I know what she was thinking. She was trying to figure out how a woman who wonders whether her outfit is too “flashy” if it has buttons was really going to reconcile herself to a handpainted, multicolored, bouclé yarn with bobbles strung along it. I could tell that my friend saw it then that it wasn’t going to work, and some of these evenings that we’ve been together, you and I, the ones where I look at you and I think, “How did I end up with you and, my God, when will we stop pretending to like each other,” I wonder why she didn’t say something. Why she didn’t steer me straight past you and say, “This is like when you wanted to date Prince. He looks like a lot of fun but we both know it would end up pretty freaky”? That’s what friends should do for each other. Long before it all ends with tears, a bottle of Shiraz, and a ball winder ripping back a relationship, your friends should come to you and tell you they think this yarn won’t work. They know me well enough to know that any sweater plan that begins with a novelty yarn and ends with the intention of something I would wear is a frank impossibility. Why didn’t they say something before you and I got serious? At knit night, at the shop, why not a few words sometime when I came in without you? The whole lot of them could have said, “Hey, Steph, that yarn isn’t for you. It’s got bobbles, and you know how you feel about that,” and then maybe I would have said, “Holy cow, you’re right. I remember the last time I had bobbly yarn. I made fun of it for knitting up into a surface that made it look like I had a million nipples on my chest. Right you are. Thank you for saving me all that time and money. You guys are great!”
I know, though, that it wouldn’t have worked. If my knit-sisters had taken a moment and said something about how you were as matched to my taste as nude go-go dancing in public is, I would have told them that they were wrong. That you were charming, and fun, and that it was time to embrace something a little different and try new things, and isn’t it okay, just once in a while, not to be yourself entirely? That maybe there is something wonderful about stepping outside of what you always like, what you always do, who you always are. I know that I have nineteen plain brown shirts and, I admit it, I do think they look really good with plain brown pants (and for the record I think the way I put that look together has way more flair than a UPS man’s uniform), but does that really mean that I wouldn’t look fabulous in a multicolored, bouclé, bobble yarn, wrap sweater? Does it really? Just because this is who I am now, does that mean that I can’t grow? Can’t change? Can’t knit and love a yarn that isn’t really me?
If they’d have told me that you were wrong for me then, I wouldn’t have seen it. Love is blind, my skeined buddy, and just like it is with anything you’re dumping, the time for your friends to tell you, “I’ve always hated him and I knew from the start that it could never work” is after the breakup, when the yarn is gone for good.
In any event, I’m mostly sorry. Not hugely sorry, because, as I believe I mentioned before, you are actually only yarn and you’re actually inert. It was just me who got crushed. As much as it feels like you were a part of this process and this relationship, you never made an effort. I got my time wasted and learned that my self-image isn’t quite ready to make the leap from beige to bobbles. I got taunted by the promise of a cute new sweater that’s not going to happen, and you… you’re what you started out as. You’re a fine-looking yarn with bright promise, who’s going to make some other knitter very happy someday, when you’re away from me.
That other knitter, she’ll knit you up into something, probably a funky wrap cardigan, just like I tried to make, and every time a bobble shows up she’ll be thrilled instead of secretly and intensely horrified that a bobble yarn is making bobbles. When it’s done she’ll be cozy and delighted, and she’ll wear you everywhere and the two of you will be totally happy together. Yes, that’s how it will be. I’ll put you down and pick up with a really traditional tweed in some shade of brown and that yarn and I will make some cables together, and you’ll go find a fun-loving knitter who embraces you for what you are. In time, we’ll both move on, and this time we’ve spent, when we both knew the truth and I kept knitting anyway, this horrible few weeks when we were together all the time and couldn’t tell each other the truth, will all be a memory. We’ll remember that you wanted me to be something I wasn’t, and I wanted the same thing from you, and in time, we’ll forget about each other.
Years later, one day in spring, I’ll be walking down the street, probably while visiting New York, when the cherry blossoms are out in Central Park and it’s all so romantic, and I’ll pass someone on the sidewalk. It will be a woman who looks fantastic. She’ll be tall and gorgeous, probably wearing black skinny jeans and tall black boots, and she’ll have on a black scarf that trails gossamer behind her. She’ll be walking with authority, probably laughing with her friends on the way to cocktails, and she’ll be so sexy, and so chic, and she’ll look so incredible that I’ll wish I was her, and that’s when I’ll see it. She’s wearing you—a multicolor, bouclé, bobble-knit wrap sweater—and your strand will make her look like she’s got a million nipples, only, on her, a million nipples look fantastic.
In that minute, I’ll miss you and what we could have been, if only we were ready for each other.
Cheers, and best of luck.
