I have always been a planner. I write to-do lists, plan out my vacations one year to 8 months in advance, look to a calendar of meetings and events with a sense of joy and accomplishment. But being married to a pilot with ADD (undiagnosed by any professional but I swear it’s undeniable) and having 5 kids and two full time jobs between us — you learn a couple things. One of them is time is not your own. Second is, it’s not really controllable unless you want to become a certified freak.
My kids will say I’m the latter. Yes, it can be said I keep tabs on them via cyberstalking, try to control their intake of all things bad for their health and God forbid any one of them crosses the threshold with a “C” grade or less. But in the last almost four years, I have been able to let go of a few things:
- My house is not always 100% picked up — although this does cause me some angst.
- My car is not always clean and the tank filled past 1/2 a tank — always in the past, that had to be the rule
- Sometimes my nails are not really presentable — chipped polish, etc.
- I may occasionally go more than 5 weeks in-between haircuts — we won’t talk about the consequences here
I know that to some people, these are just small things — part of the human existence, but for someone like me, these small pieces of control were difficult to release. I had to understand that no one really cared about these things even a tiny bit, except for me. And if I could let them go, all would be well and there would be no catastrophic events occurring in the universe.
Now, when there’s a band concert or play that I didn’t know about and my husband texts me at work to tell me he just found out about it, I roll with the punches. We get take out and shove ourselves into the car(s). Because inevitably another kid also has another gig he/she needs to be attending at the same time. And because it’s about living the moments we’re given more than it’s about planning everything out perfectly.
It’s hard for me to admit and sometimes hard for me to believe, but Perfect can be kinda boring sometimes. (Don’t tell Perfect because sometimes I still like to visit there….) 😉
Happy Holidays everyone, and let go of the Perfect!
mtolleyhall 