MY BIG ORANGE SWEATER

I knit myself a sweater a few years ago. The wool yarn is a deep orange, flecked with yellow and brown. I didn't use a pattern; once you understand how many stitches of any particular yarn it takes to make an inch, you can make things to any measurement. My sweater is very long and wide so I don't have to worry about it fitting and so warm that if a blizzard ever comes to Los Angeles I'm definitely prepared.
     A few months ago, I noticed that moths had gotten to the yarn. There were a number of holes, one of them fairly big and I wasn't sure it could be mended. I bordered on bereft; it wasn't fair that something I was so proud of, loved so much was damaged by little flying creatures that for some reason had targeted me. I shook out the sweater, put it in a plastic bin with some moth balls (which is what I should have done in the first place) and there it sat for weeks.
     I didn't forget the sweater - I kept seeing those holes, so big I couldn't wear the sweater and hope no one would notice. Somehow, leaving the sweater in that state felt sacrilegious; this was my work, I'd put in the hours and hours it took to make it - if I didn't honor all my effort, it would be because I so little valued myself. I saw it clearly and knew it was true.
     I found a reweaver and took the sweater in. Mending it was expensive but my self-esteem was at stake so I left it at the shop. I picked it up today and it looks great - if the two women who own the business hadn't left markers of where the mends were, I never would have found them. 
     I'm looking at the sweater now and am amazed to realize I feel something like joy. If I hadn't taken it to be mended, I can feel precisely the guilt I'd have every time I passed the closet and thought about the sweater in its eaten state. I'm thinking now about all the times I've let things slide, been too lazy or to full of what's-the-point depression to do the ordinary maintenance everyone has to do. But I've been trying to do better and this time I did. I took care of my sweater - I took care of myself.