Perfection always leads to peril....

I am a recovering perfectionist. I struggle every time I log onto my blog. I am not satisfied with the look of this blog, its style, its lack of photos, the font, yada, yada, yada..... you get the picture.

The real struggle for me is to just let this blog Be. Be what I originally intended - a place to log stories, practice writing, connect my mundane but unusually twisted life to the universe. For me to sit back and let this blog just Be is excruciating.... to know that this is my image in cyberspace just kills me. Why? I don't know.. because I'm a pathetic, depraved human like the rest of us.. I don't trust that what I have to say, no matter what it looks like, matters.... to anyone! Believing that its okay if my words don't matter to anyone is just fine, because my words matter to me. Accepting that my words may only ever matter to just me is good enough. GOOD ENOUGH. Those words that make perfectionists cry... GOOD ENOUGH. Good enough implies that its all still worthy, even with ugliness and mistakes and monotony and boredom and gaps in posts and ugly fonts. Good enough implies acceptance of the good parts and the not so good parts.

For perfectionists, we don't want anyone to know there are "not so good" parts. To admit the weaknesses, the failings, the inadequacies requires us to risk. To risk ourselves. To be vulnerable... oh, lordy, being vulnerable... that is definitely not the strong suit of this perfectionist, or at least that's what I want to believe.  When in fact, it is in our own need to be perfect that we show the world - in loud technicolor-flashing-lights-on-Broadway style that in fact we are a mess. A beautiful, flawed, screwed up mess.....To accept that we are still worthy to be, in all our messiness, is the goal. Either way, really, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. To be found out, through the counterfeit veil of perfection or authentically just laying it out on the table, real, unadulterated, raw,  and messy. Either way, life happens. So, I'm moving toward authenticity. You'll figure out who I am eventually.... you'll come to your own conclusions about me and that will be that. I've got too much laundry to do and too many Christmas cookies yet to bake to spend time worrying about what the blogosphere thinks, so I'll just save us both some time and lay it all out there....

Hoping you have a GOOD ENOUGH Christmas!

Time marches on.....

Today would be my grandfather's 108th birthday, if he were still alive! How on earth can I have memories of someone who would be 108!?!?!?

Oh, and my baby brother turns 37 tomorrow! Yep, I'm feeling old.

The other day, little brother was in an urgent state about securing life insurance before his birthday as the the costs go up with age. Took me about 25 minutes to become comfortable with the fact that he's a grown up and I'm fast approaching middle age.

Remember how every Fall and back to school time meant that you had an opportunity to re-invent yourself.... I sort of feel like that these days, as life as I formerly knew it comes crashing down around me... but with the harsh realization time is not really on my side any longer. I've put things off:  I'll save more next year, I'll get back to Jazzercise after the holidays, I'll email that old friend tomorrow. My mind and my body are definitely running on completely different clocks. My mind feels like I'm about 32. My body reminds me I'm about 56. Don't even get me started on those "real-age" quizzes...

I'm staring down the barrel at 40 and having to start my life all over again. I think my official mid-life crisis has begun.

Time to do some serious re-evaluating. What will I take with me into the 2nd half of my life? What will I leave behind? The past 2 years have proven to be great existential sifters to help me air out my priorities... where I put my energy, emotions, and investments of myself and money.


If you had to start life over again, what would you do differently?

Paradigm Shift

I've been M.I.A. for the last month or so due to some major life upheaval..... sorry. Lots of juicy stuff but nothing quite ready for prime time. I am going to write a book about it all. I think I'll call it Why 16 Year Olds Should NOT Have Sex. So, until publication (who knows when!!) you'll just have to trust me that the experience has been note worthy, to say the least.

In the meantime, I've been reading about Rachel and Doug's big decision over at Small Notebook. WOW! Could you do this? Would you do this? Should you do this?

This has raised some seriously big questions for me.... because nothing like changing perspective up when life has thrown you some major challenges!

What is normal?

So.... its the day after Labor Day. The first official day of "normal" season. Summer is over. Back To School flurry and novelty is definitely worn off. We even had our first possible sick day today, but being the stealth mom that I am, I put the kibosh on that real quick.

The reality of life is settling in like concrete today. We received several bouts of bad news over the last 7 days making the start of September like a gigantic sucker punch to the jaw. Situations and beliefs that I've had about my life and the lives of my friends and family are all crashing down around me. Life as we've known it is ending. The few places left were some naivete existed in my world are quickly being swallowed up. I am stuck in a whirlpool of unknowns were I am questioning what "normal" really is.

I've never been a big fan of "normal" -- isn't it just a setting on the dryer? I hear "typical" used frequently in its place and that somehow fits the bill, sometimes... but the changes ahead definitely won't be considered "typical," at least not for a few years.

I admit I'm scared. I'm not generally afraid of much, but the upcoming changes in my world are frightening. Perhaps because I feel like a pioneer into this new world. No one around me has gone this way before. At least not yet. This is where I can identify the passing away of my naivete,  all the while quickly recognizing when it is still alive and well in others.

What does normal/typical look like?
What is a normal life expectancy?
What is a normal standard of living for college educated professionals?
What is a normal definition of success?
What is a normal definition of thriving?
What defines the middle class?
Does God fit in anywhere in normal?
Is normal the goal?

Thoughts?