IMPERFECT

If there is one subject upon which I can speak with great authority, IF being key here, it would be Imperfect.
I am an admirer of imperfections. I am the embodiment of imperfection. I seek it out. I need it in my life and I have never had a shortage. Imperfections are all around me, all through me and in fact, finding perfect would be a waste of time for me. I don't need perfection because that means the learning is over. The growing stops with perfection. Anything done after perfect removes the perfection. Only a work of art, which stands unchanged forever can achieve and hold perfection. Other things lose their perfection with age or use or improvements. Wine does get better with age, but some turn into vinegar at some point and that is hardly perfect for a vintage wine.

The reason I don't want perfection in my life is because that is just one more thing I am not and don't need to compare myself to perfect.

.A friend of mine said that to her my life looked perfect. When I was able to stop laughing, I replied that it may indeed because the grass is always greener. I do have a pretty good life. I have a lot of love in my life and I am happy a great deal of the time. My life is not perfect. My heart is in a state of repair quite often over one thing or another. I am stressed out about a lot of things a lot of the time, but have learned to think things through and then do what I can do to make it better, but if that isn't possible then to hand over to God anything that I cannot change. I accept what IS and try to move through it with as much grace as I can summon. I accept what IS and pray for strength and wisdom to survive or help someone else survive whatever it is that IS. I can't do more and stressing doesn't make it better or give me peace. It doesn't change what IS and God will do what is to be done regardless of my stress level. So I relinquish all power over what IS and ask only for strength and wisdom for all involved. That isn't perfection, that is living a life I have learned through heartache and tears will go on whether I worried myself sick about something or not. I choose not. I'm not perfect. I make huge gigantic errors in judgement frequently. Why? Why haven't I learned after almost 64 years of life among other people that sometimes it's best to shut-the-hell-up? Because I always believe I am saying something that needs to be heard. I always think I'm helping. I'm not. Know why? Because I'm not perfect. I am, however, perfectly willing to listen to people who need to talk and when asked, sometimes not asked, perfectly willing to share my vast knowledge of a few subjects. I have many opinions. Some of them are founded in life history, mine. Some of them are just feelings or emotional opinions, but any advice I hand out always comes from a loving place and meant only to help or at the very least, get the listener to think for themselves while mulling over what I've spewed at them. Love isn't perfect, but it's constant.

I don't strive to be perfect nor do I seek perfection in my family or friends, I try to love them as they are and hope they will do the same. Perfection is boring and boring I am not.

Jo

Drat! It's Coming Again!

 Here it comes. Ready or not. And I'm not.

 I'm never ready for Fall. My flowers are wilting or have already died. The humming birds are feeding ferociously to gain strength for their long flights. I will miss them. The days are cooler, though we've had a good bit of sunshine so far. The nights are cold. Like me. Fall makes me cold.

I spend a good deal of time in September looking for something to make me laugh. Looking for something to occupy my mind because if I don't, nothing occupies my mind or my heart. If I don't find joy by actively looking for it, it eludes me.

I find all of this odd. I am a joyful person. I choose happiness. I choose smiles over tears. I choose love over loneliness.  Yet...in the fall, I cannot make those choices. They are not available to me. I am preparing for the bleakness of winter, I guess. I really don't know why this happens. I really cannot stop it. I cannot control my head or my heart in the fall. I want to embrace the bright colors, the comfortable temperatures, the holidays coming up. But I don't. I don't.

The part that really bothers me is that in the past the thought of the holidays would bring me such joy that I could actually limit the lows by concentrating and getting ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas and my own birthday. That doesn't work anymore because those days are still joyful and joy filled, but it's only the day. Not the season anymore. Not the idea of family it used to bring to mind, though I do dwell on the memories of those awesome times. Not being one to live in the past, this is one exception and one time when I allow myself to not only look back, but also to willingly bring those days to the forefront of my mind. Those days make me smile, make me warm and make me yearn all at the same time. The good and the bad.

Aging is hard sometimes. It's also wonderful sometimes. I have decided for me, at least, that aging is much more about looking ahead than looking back. I have decided that aging is decisions made for you that you would not have chosen, but must accept. Children grown into adults raising their own children have their own ideas of what they want their life to be. They have their own plans. Aging means you have to let go, again. You have to accept what they need for their families and try to fit yourself into their needs. Aging means you are changing, even when you don't want change. It's hard, it's life.

Here's the rub. I'm sad. I'm unmotivated. I'm not enjoying my life. I am enjoying moments of my life. I am enjoying talking with the kids and their kids. I am enjoying having time for Momma and my friends. I am enjoying having no pressure on me to produce or to perform. I like the freedom of aging. The freedom that allows me to just do what I want, when I want except when Momma needs me. I am working very hard right now to ignore fall and ignore the heaviness in my being. I am focusing on enjoying more and more moments until they equal my life again. The moments really are your life, you know?

I am very grateful for my friends, my supportive group of family and friends and of course, for the man who puts up with all this moodiness and has zero understanding of any of it. He was definitely sent to me.

Jo