How to Make A California Girl Quilt.

You've got the best of both worlds
You're the kind of girl who can take down a man,
And lift him back up again
You are strong but you're needy,
Humble but you're greedy
And based on your body language,
And shoddy cursive I've been reading
Your style is quite selective,
though your mind is rather reckless
Well I guess it just suggests
that this is just what happiness is
Hey, what a beautiful mess this is...

-Jason Mraz, A Beautiful Mess

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what it is that has made me who I am. Why I react the way I do to certain things. Am I simply a product of my upbringing - of learning to share, being a sister, and learning how to use the big girl potty? Am I a product of what what instilled in me at my core by 3 years old, like some psychologists would argue? Or by 13? OhGodIhopenot. Am I simply just turning into my mother? Probably. Or am I a product of my parents divorce? How am I both strong and fragile? Why do I gravitate towards neon yellow underwear? How is it that I am both pragmatic and logical while still totally guided (and sometimes misguided) by my heart & the need to be loved? Are my reactions to things just the way my brain is made up - synapses firing, dopamine released? Is it simply just what being human is - am I just this way because that is how God made me?

Quilting 101? Sure.
 Because
Underwater Basketweaving
was full.

While I will never have an actual answer to any of these questions, the one thing I do believe is yes - to all of the above. Sorta. Although I may feel like a beautiful mess at times, more often than not
I feel like I am a beautiful homesewn quilt that will never be finished. Like a security blanket that I carry everywhere I  go.

See that patch over there?
Yes, yes that one - that's five years with my Ex. But the one down there, that is the two seconds it took for that boy in PE in 9th grade to tell me, "You are just so ugly. I can't even look at you."

Close by, is that same boy telling me at the end of the year, unprompted, that he was sorry for saying that & actually had had a crush on me. Idiot. There is a gorgeous patch for my 10+ year anchoring friendship with my Best Friend in San Francisco, a patch for her older brother breaking my heart at twenty two, and a tiny patch for her other brother calling me White Trash when we were teenagers. The stitching around these patches -- what has been stitched in that exact instant into my identity & into my quilt, that's me believing it, thats me internalizing it. Some of the stitching is thin, nearly removable, easily breakable - and some of it is a strong running back stitch done of thick yarn. Sewn into my quilt, my identity, are both my strength and my fragility, both the analytical and the illogical.
Thankfully, sewn into my quilt with that thick yarn is my best guy friend of over ten years telling me,

Ok so, here's the deal, if I knew how to express the feeling I get when I see a picture of you or when I'm with you, I would be rich. Because it's just a feeling.

And my mother and father repeating I love you over & over again the past 29 years.

Unfortunately, with that same thick yarn is sewn,

I just don't see you as my future wife anymore, as the future mother of my children. I just can't do it anymore. I'm just not in love with you anymore.

My Dutchman has a patch, my parents divorce has a patch. My eight years in my tiny town has a patch. I have patches for what has uplifted me sewn in with gold thread, but there are also patches for what has broken me down. Patches for love, for friends, for abuse and for self destruction, for laughing, and for forgiveness.
The backing of my quilt; what holds it all together, the part that envelopes me as I walk this Earth, and my tiny town -  thats me at my core; thats the make up of my brain. But the myriad of patches on the opposite side - the words uttered, the life experiences - that's what makes my quilt Mine. Capital M.
I am like a beautiful, imperfect homesewn quilt that will never be finished - We all are.
And if my quilt becomes a beautiful mess, I just have to remind myself that there is this nifty little invention called a 'seam ripper.'

Sidenotes: In the last couple weeks I have finally returned to Normal - or as close to it as possible. Good things have been happening, and I finally feel back to being Myself - single and strong and fragile and happy. Happy with my decisions, and happy with my surroundings. Damn, I've got good friends.
Aaaaand... Goldi & the Doctor are exclusive.