Wobbly Steps
This house is full of wobbly steps these days. Literal ones, in the form of my walking one year old who melts me with her hazel eyes and determination and the occasional casual THUMP as she lands on her little butt, gets up, and starts toddling off again.
But there are more wobbly steps. Like me trying to clean the kitchen while avoiding the painful infection on the sole of my foot where an infected splinter punishes me for walking barefoot in the garden in one of the sunny days last month.
Wobbly steps as D and I try to navigate the piles of junk in our attic because, as hard as I've been trying, I just can't clear it out. And every time I organize it (or, you know, take TEN GARBAGE BAGS to the kringloop in one week), it still spreads out again. Or I undo my previous organization so that I can move all of D's super cool, super manly power tools to a new storage room, and never put away what I moved out of that storage room.
Wobbly steps as my big boy Pippin rides on his new bike and occasionally lands in the grass and has to get himself and his bike up and back onto the bike path. No training wheels, no problems.
And so, so many wobbly steps in the metaphorical sense, as I tell myself that every blogpost doesn't have to be perfect before I post it. Trying is good; perfectionism is not good. Stalling out in the middle of an intersection with a patient driving instructor is better than being too nervous to drive here at all. Asking to meet up with busy, beautiful, successful friends is better than shyly staying home and being lonely. Eating gluten-free, dairy-free lasagna is not as good as an authentic Italian lasagna eaten at a trattoria in Naples (bucket list?) but is better than not having any lasagna at all. 20 minutes of editing my backlog of novel drafts is better than not editing at all.
Wobbly steps are better than not walking at all.
But there are more wobbly steps. Like me trying to clean the kitchen while avoiding the painful infection on the sole of my foot where an infected splinter punishes me for walking barefoot in the garden in one of the sunny days last month.
Wobbly steps as D and I try to navigate the piles of junk in our attic because, as hard as I've been trying, I just can't clear it out. And every time I organize it (or, you know, take TEN GARBAGE BAGS to the kringloop in one week), it still spreads out again. Or I undo my previous organization so that I can move all of D's super cool, super manly power tools to a new storage room, and never put away what I moved out of that storage room.
Wobbly steps as my big boy Pippin rides on his new bike and occasionally lands in the grass and has to get himself and his bike up and back onto the bike path. No training wheels, no problems.
And so, so many wobbly steps in the metaphorical sense, as I tell myself that every blogpost doesn't have to be perfect before I post it. Trying is good; perfectionism is not good. Stalling out in the middle of an intersection with a patient driving instructor is better than being too nervous to drive here at all. Asking to meet up with busy, beautiful, successful friends is better than shyly staying home and being lonely. Eating gluten-free, dairy-free lasagna is not as good as an authentic Italian lasagna eaten at a trattoria in Naples (bucket list?) but is better than not having any lasagna at all. 20 minutes of editing my backlog of novel drafts is better than not editing at all.
Wobbly steps are better than not walking at all.
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