My Quilt of Memories

If a quilt is to be made to represent the important events in my life, my mother would be certain to include three specific squares made of the materials from the key items that existed within those memories to symbolize those significant three events. The first square would be made of the cloth from my old, ribbon-like measuring tape with all measurement marks kept, pieced together to form the name "Ana."  The second square completed with the cotton from my teddy bear's maroon scarf would be crafted to form the outline of a circle.  And the third square would be accented with the bits of red-stained, beige cloth from my old bandage.  All three of these squares play their roles on this quilt to stir up old memories, evoking them vividly, and reminding me that I would not be the person I am today without their occurrences in my life.

The first square made of the measuring tape cloth evokes my first encounter with Ana.  Ana was my best friend and enemy at the very beginning of fifth grade, and she nearly killed me.  I was malnourished due to this eating disorder most people know as anorexia nervosa, but I had taken a liking to this mindset for I allowed it to define me, and I grew attached to it to the point where it nearly crippled me.  Fortunately, this friendship with Ana did not last, and the war against Ana was one in which I ended up as the victor.  The many fights I had to put up with made me stronger, and it helped me build character as I was given the opportunity to grow and find my inner strength.  And as I became closer to my dreams and goals after this victorious outcome, and content with who I wanted to be, the winning of this battle against Ana was just the beginning of the chaos my internal conflicts would create for my loved ones; it drove us apart and would bring us together.

The memory awakened by the first square only led to the awakening of the memory from the second square on the quilt, the one made with my teddy bear's scarf.  It was meant to be shaped to form a circle, for the circle represents my grandfather's death.  After all, what lies within the circle stays inside, and what lies outside stays outside; our worlds became separate and distanced with a gap that cannot be closed.  His death was my first exposure to the pain of losing of a loved one, or rather, it was a loss of two loved ones; death had snatched my grandfather out of my life, and his death shattered my relationship with my mother, leaving it unhealed and begging to be restored.  But this experience did not leave me as a fallen and broken child; I was finally given the opportunity after two years of holding everything inside to cry in my father's arms, wrapped safely against his chest and my lovely, new teddy bear.  It was from this event I learned that as a human, I should always allow myself to feel and to let my emotions be the way they are rather than pushing them away out of fear and doubt.  It was an important lesson that I would soon forget, and would have to stumble upon a second time for my own sake in the third quilted square.

Unconsciously letting the motivational lesson I learned in the second square pass me by, I was forced to a corner by my own demons in the event signified by the third square accented by the red-stained bits of beige cloth from my old bandage.  I did not want to be afraid, I did not want to die, and I was tired of feeling numb all the time, so relief was what I found when I turned to self-harm.  The only anesthetic that existed for me at the time killed me on the inside, but it made me feel me alive, and that was all that mattered to me because I wanted to feel real and believe that the life I was living was a reality and not just a dream.  It was because of this major event in my life that guided me on the path towards discovering who I really was as an individual, along with my values, ethics, dreams, flaws, and strengths.  I learned that just one small seed of hope could grow to become a relentless force that would push me towards my goals, and I learned that every time we touch and mend another person's heart, we touch our own hearts and restore a bit of something left unhealed in our past.  This event made me realize that good things will grow out of our pain, and if we try hard enough and hang in there long enough, we will be able to reach the end of the darkness and step into a new beginning that leads to a brighter future.  My eyes finally came to see that after every storm, there exists the peace we were all longing for.

These three squares that would call to mind memories of an eating disorder, of loss, and of self-harm…my mother would include all three in my quilt; their individual stories all pieced together in the same manner as my own shattered soul has been put together over the years.  The events forever changed my personality, character, and perception in life; it changed me.  And this change, it was truly for the better.  These trials introduced me to a delicate strand of hope that I could cling onto throughout my future years, and it made me strong of heart despite my fragility.  All that time I felt alone, and those feelings blinded me from what was really there in my life.  But in reality, I was not alone, and this truth was one that was almost lost to me and it would have stayed that way had these three events not occurred in my life.  The pain always goes away, and the memory of the pain will never be as real as when it originally happened, but the internal and external scars will never heal.  In the end, it only took three events to buff up one small soul, and it made me realize that in life, things will happen and can happen in a matter of seconds, and when they happen, they will change me forever.  All it takes is the path that I choose to walk on to make a difference between a change for the worse and a change for the better.  And this quilt would be all the physical evidence needed to prove the choice I had made in my life…for the better.