Perfection: a note to self

Back to back showings and an Open House Saturday, and I’m falling into the perfectionism trap.

Then I found this note I’d written to my younger self:

Discard the concept of perfection:
choose to embrace vulnerability
and imperfection as fertile ground.

Taking comfort in my own words.

Monday Mood: cautious

… or maybe the word is precarious.

The ‘for sale’ sign went up on the house Thursday. The ad online activated Friday afternoon. We’d already had a viewing scheduled before the listing went live.

In the meantime, we’ve been scrambling to pack up the excess and make this house presentable. It’s more work than remembered and we are both exhausted.

Another showing tomorrow, video-taping on Thursday, and an Open House on Saturday, and I’m afraid to admit that I feel a cold hovering.

So, yes, I’m feeling cautiously optimistic, and aware of the precariousness of my physical health.

Might need that ladder.

Three Gifts

The decision has been made – it is time for us to move on to the next stage of life.

The house will be sold and we shall look for a smaller, rental apartment. It hasn’t been easy coming to this conclusion, and it won’t be easy making the transition, but excitement is part of the equation.

We will be moving back to the city, closer to family, and doctors, and all conveniences.

Now the purge and pack begins.

Acceptance, wisdom, and openness are at my side: three gifts to guide me.

The Lie

I lied.

The initial seed of disappointment has fermented,
and in the absence of confrontation, grown roots

written sorrowful chapters
conclusion: unworthiness

Why couldn’t I just have said:
I don’t understand
this makes me unhappy?

Where did I learn that prevarication protects
that I alone am responsible for emotions
that I do not matter?

Decades later
I still cannot uproot the weed.
The lie remains.

(Image my own)

On Silence

“When you sit in silence long enough, you learn that silence has a motion. It glides like water. Its colour is silver. And silence has a sound you hear only after hours of wading inside it. The sound is soft, like flute notes rising up, like the words of glass speaking. Then there comes a point when you must shatter the blindness of its words the blindness of its light.”

Growing up fifth of six kids, I learned that life was chaos and noise. It was where I thrived. Always shared a room, and later, an apartment, and marriage, and my own children, and when finally silence found me, it was shattering. It took a long while for me to appreciate the gift in silence, and like anything in life, I had to learn not to rest there too long.

Balance and moderation. That’s what I seek.

But, oh, I do love silence.