I’m so all or nothing. And that personality trait is really getting in the way of my productivity these days. Here are some examples:
If I don’t have time to clean the whole house…we all might as well live like we are living in a frat house. Dirty dishes? Leave em. We can start using the left over Buzz Lightyear paper plates from Colt’s 9th birthday party. We might as well put my hoarding tendencies to use. These aren’t gonna use themselves! Laundry? Why wash clothes when they make such a comfy mountain pillow on our couches? And bonus…when they are scattered all over the floor…they create a nice trap for the dog hair and food crumbs…so sweeping and vacuuming become completely unnecessary! Our outside, riding toys??? Let those bad boys rust in the front yard!!! It gives us that nice “lived-in” curb appeal and the HOA something to do. Why put them back in the garage…only to be bothered to have to walk the 37 extra steps to get them back out of there the next day? That’s just using good time management! We’ve got to conserve our energy for watching Netflix later.
Oh! And if I’m not gonna go through the hassle of eyeliner…might as well not wear ANY makeup! And if I’m not gonna wear any makeup…having my hair in any way other than a messy bun makes zero sense. And if I’m wearing it in a messy bun…washing it becomes as futile as shoveling the driveway in a snowstorm. What’s the point, really? Cute outfit??? Nope. That would just confuse people. We either look like a Kardashian or an inmate. There is no in between.
And…further more…if I don’t have time to cook a meal worthy of my own food network show…cereal it is. If I can’t read you a story, sing a lullaby and pray with you at tuck in…why even walk upstairs? You can read to yourselves! In fact…use this as a time to read your take-home readers! Yes. This is just good parenting, really.
Speaking of praying…why pray at all if I don’t have time to be on my knees with my Bible and journal in hand? I mean…it’s either the Proverbs 31 woman or Nicki Minaj over here.
But here’s the deal. Most of life is lived in the in between. So…this personality trait of mine is not working! It used to work just fine. You wanna know why? Because I wasn’t old Mother Hubbard then! (Or am I the woman in the shoe????) I don’t know…but you get the idea. It’s that flipping perfectionism striking again! And here’s the truth…people with 6 kids can’t have things perfect. It’s, like, cosmically impossible.
I don’t have the answer…obviously. But my prayer for myself today is that I can get comfortable with the in between. It really is a beautiful place to be, I think. A bit uncomfortable for me…but beautiful non-the-less. In a beautifully perfect-less kind of way. Like…maybe kinda pretty-ishly ordinary. Oh alright…it’s messy. Let’s just call it a “cute-in-a-hairless-cat-messily-mediocre-but-okay-for-now” place to be.
Baby steps.