sewing skills could use some work

I’ve been knitting a blanket for a friend of mine for such a long period of time I can no longer remember exactly how many years ago I started knitting it. She’s been my friend since my first year at Bishop’s University. The blanket is a patchwork of color, multiple rectangles sewn together, entirely made by knit stitches. Talia, the friend who will one day own the blanket, will be visiting me in a month. My friendship with her, unlike the work on the blanket, is not constant - we were closer when we both attended Bishop’s University, and now we go weeks without messaging each other. I sometimes worry when I finish the blanket, ideally will be within the month, our friendship might go when she does. I don’t want it to, though, so I will probably put the effort in to continuing to communicate with her.

A patchwork of everyone I ever loved would have so many holes in it that it would be a more like a pile of rags than an article of clothing. People I loved are not necessarily people I currently love. So if it's a patchwork, some of the patches have had a seam-ripper torn through them, leave holes behind. Ironic, really, considering patches are usually meant to hide holes.

There's a hole where my first ever friend once was - Grace, who used to violently attack me when we got into arguments, who I once could not imagine a life without. She was in my patchwork quilt for seven years before I took the thread and started tearing. I thought she would actually murder me by the end - she tried, twice. We had broken into a swimming pool so there weren't any lifeguards, any adults at all actually, and after I jumped, she jumped on top on me, her feet on my shoulders, keeping me underwater. She must have loved me, or at least regretted or feared what she had done. I didn't actually drown - my next memory is puking out water on the concrete. Eleven years old and I had had my first taste of mortality that I could attribute to another human being rather than my body failing me.

If I'm a patchwork of everyone I've ever loved, quite a lot of me must be other people because I have loved many in my life. My first romantic love was, like most first loves, unrequited, leading to my first heartbreak. She had been my best friend, so it was something between a friendship ending and a breakup. I mourned. Thirteen years old, of course I thought my life was over. At fourteen I had my first and only romantic relationship where emotions existed on both sides - that was when I had my first kiss. I was told I was a terrible French kisser. He had had an abusive homelife and I hadn't learned exactly how the cycle of abuse worked since Grace hadn't been abused herself, so I pitied him without realizing he had been mistreating me until after he had decided we were done. That was three months of my life, the only experience I bring regarding loving someone in that specific silk patch.

Then again, if I'm a patchwork of everyone I've ever loved, is love the thread? Does love hold me together? I would prefer to believe something stronger was what sewed me up, maybe passion or curiosity, something I could attribute to myself alone, but no man is an island. I guess this is a snapshot of what that quilt would look like.