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Patching Jeans

I have a pair of very faded and comfortable blue jeans. The best I recall, I bought these at least five years ago and wore them to the exclusion of any other jeans I owned. This past weekend, I spent many hours patching and appliquéing my favorite article of clothing. By the time I was done, I was worn out and my jeans had acquired a fresh lease of life. The project was a labor of love and a form of meditation.
There are friendships I have in the waning months of the year resurrected from the dead or near-death and nurtured back to life. Like my freshly patched jeans, they feel revived from the effort I just put into them. Unlike the jeans, I do not have a way to hold up my work and admire it. When I get off the phone with E for instance and promise to catch up with her again soon, I don't know for a fact that the friendship is healthy enough to survive the long periods of neglect, misuse and disregard.
I wore my jeans this morning and both J and DB said they looked really nice. Clearly, the infusion of life into it showed. My only regret was that I as I waited as long as I did to get started. Watching me toil over my shabby old jeans last night, DB said "I wish you were doing all this work on a nicer pair of jeans". I wish the same for many things in my life, where the repair and resuscitation came a little too late. Each time I wear these jeans, I will remember to attend to what I must, when I must instead of waiting till life hangs by a thread.
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