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smorgasbord of mixed metaphors

i just unravelled, entirely, the 'blanket stitched' (superfluously decorative and questionably attractive) edge of my fleece throw because it was gradually coming undone and it seemed easier to act as an agent of the inevitable than to try preventing it. (each time i slept, my torso and limbs would become awkwardly entwined with the wayward string, gradually tugging more of it loose, but never enough to finish the cursed nocturnal deconstruction.)

i am no seamstress (i am in fact quite the opposite) but i must note that this seam's structural integrity was crap--equivalent to a row of dominoes set up to be knocked down by the mere toppling of one. i think it is the same stitch used on bags of cat litter or dog food (though with these, ironically, i can never seem to find the right way to loose the first stitch and end up tearing the bag in frustration. i think many a pet o' mine has silently enjoyed watching this routine-yet-epic battle between girl and packaging where the packaging almost always is the victor.)

tonight, the pleasure i derived from this unravelling process was almost indescribably heady--reminding me of how i used to enjoy using my mother's handheld seam ripper when i was a little kid (i would get into a mode where i'd not want to stop ripping ripping ripping and it was like a destructive fever had gripped me--i wonder in retrospect if this pre-dated my parents' divorce or was a result of it?). seeing as i haven't dealt with a bag of cat litter in over 5 months, and that i expend a decent amount of energy on knitting (the lovely art of building things from loops), this willful 2-minute act of premeditated destruction has got me musing about why, exactly, intentionally destroying something can feel so much like an act of creation.... why do we as humans have this innate urge to jump on sand castles (of the physical and proverbial sort) and feel the orderly spires disintegrate into grains of sand--mere cold friction between our toes? why do i, for one, feel like kicking innocent snowmen in the gut so that their precariously upright forms succumb to gravity? (fortunately there are none of these in tongyeong so i don't have to fight the urge.) is it that we cannot stand a balance? if so, why?

i can't help but wonder if so much of the self-sabotage i engaged in (consciously and unconsciously) during the past 3 decades has its roots in this urge. or something more insidious... it felt for so long like every time i would manage to create positive things in my life, i would then destroy them. (could not help but do so.) maybe, deep down, i felt 'good things' were like that seam on my blanket--structurally unsound and untrustworthy, ultimately more trouble than comfort--and that by destroying what i found i could not trust, i was actually *creating* safety...

i suppose there is a warped yet dependable logic in feeling that it is better/safer to keep taking the elevator to the ground floor (or throwing oneself down the stairs to reach the same destination) rather than risk the perils of falling, unwillingly, later from the heights of "success/happiness".

**i should note here that i finally, at age 30, no longer feel that urge to sabotage myself. one major turning point was doing a vipassana meditation course. it was the hardest thing i've ever done and has also been the most rewarding.

before = after