27/2021

27/2021

I’ve been titling these weekly Wednesday words with a number this year. And today, that number is 27, which means we’ve officially entered the second half of 2021. Where, oh where, did it go?

I make a to-do list almost every day. I also have what I call my master list or my long term list, which holds the less pressing projects I want to tackle — things like learn tarot, do a cross-stitch of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, watch several Master Class classes, attempt a painting I have in my mind, take those watercolor lessons, finish that dress I’ve been working on since… 

The list is as it was at the beginning of the year. Not one thing has been crossed off of it. 

Sometimes I wonder what exactly it is that I have done with my time. And even though I know, I know, I know where it went and where it goes, it’s hard to sometimes make peace with the fact that I don’t accomplish what I wish I could. Maybe my goals are too lofty, and I try to do too many dreamy things around the reality of what makes up my days. But what am I if I don’t dream? 

I get frustrated with the two-steps-forward-one-step-back dance. But isn’t it the one we have to learn to perform with as much grace as we can find in ourselves? I think about it all the time — interruptions and setbacks inevitably come. A few weeks ago, my therapist laid an idea on me that I’d never considered and it blew my mind. Since then, I’ve been grappling with it and trying to figure out how I can work on it in a way that won’t allow for that one step back. 

I should leave a BIG space after that statement.

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I know I won’t be able to only move forward. It doesn’t work that way. Let’s go ahead file this missive under the heading of “the best things I know I’ve learned from my son, John Henry,” because it is he who has taught me the most about patience, perseverance, and starting over as many times as is needed no matter how frustrating those backsteps may be. There is no straight line. We try, we fail, we try again, we fall apart, we try again, and maybe we get better at the trying and somehow make some headway on those things on our daily lists and even our dreamy ones. I guess that’s being a human being in a nutshell. We progress, however slowly and clumsily, then all of a sudden we do get to cross something off. And when that day comes, it will make little difference how long it took to get there; it will only matter that we did.

Sending love everywhere,

AM