Life is but a ball of yarn...

Everyone is like a ball of string.  Some people are good, solid yarn - the kind you make sweaters out of to keep warm on cold evenings.  Others are pretty to look at, but no use for anything other than decoration - rather like lace.  And we all know people who are like twine - they are not too pretty, but incredibly helpful in tough situations.

I was born a small ball of yarn - the kind you can buy for $2.50/lb at the local hobby store.  Plain color, plain texture.

It was clear my family had no idea what to do with one so ordinary as myself.  I was eventually tossed to the cat.  Like all cats, this one found me to be a fascinating plaything.  I was battered around, unraveled, and tied up in knots.  I suffered the indignity of being gnawed on and drooled over.  When the cat finally tired of me, I was left - a snarled mess of yarn - to associate with the dust bunnies under the great bed of life.

Several years later, it occurred to me that no one had said I had to stay under the bed, tangled and dirty and gathering dust.  I began to draw the tattered pieces of myself together, winding them with precision and care.  It was hard going at times - some parts of me were so frayed that a sharp tug would have rent me in two.  The sections that the cat had drooled on had grown stiff over time, and had to be worked to become supple again.

After many years of struggle and hard work, it was done - I was once again a ball of yarn!  A bit battered, sure - but still usable, still useful, ready to be put towards some great work.  Part of a tapestry, maybe?  Or perhaps decoration in a child's masterpiece?

I admired myself for a long time.  Too long, for as time went by I began to doubt I had the ability to become something great.  Had I been fooling myself all this time?  Had I growing confident only to be disappointed once again?  But this time was worse - I was the one who had disappointed myself.

So I threw myself back to the cat.

I found some strange pleasure in the feline's administrations.  Sure, it wasn't fun being rolled around and chased, and unraveled yet again - but it brought the cat pleasure, right?  At least my life had some purpose, some meaning.  I was a plaything to a dangerous predator several times larger than myself - but I was content.

This pattern continued for many years...to be discarded as an old, useless toy...to fix myself back up...to be abused again.  It was a miserable existence - but it was familiar, and thus comfortable.  There was a pattern and routine to my life.  Although it was dangerous, the idea of facing the unknown and breaking out of the pattern was more terrifying than the thought of staying where I was.  So I stayed.

But as I was battered and frayed, my mind began to learn, to grow, to mature into something that desired more than my current pathetic existence.  It all came to a head one day, when the cat managed to wrap one of my strands around his neck during play.  I made sure that horrible feline would NEVER abuse me again.

One last time, pulling myself together.  The parts that had frayed and broken away were lovingly tied back together...the strands stiffened with cat drool carefully washed and dried.  Once again, winding myself back into a compact ball of abused yarn.

This time, I gave myself to someone who can spin yarn into a work of art - to weave the weakened sections with his own yarn to add his strength to my own.  Together, we can become more than what we were apart.

Together, we will thrive.