In Pursuit of Imperfection

It's been a rough month for me.

My child has been hospitalized twice for seizures. I was hospitalized once with strep throat and exhaustion. My husband is working overtime most days.

Things were almost back to normal when we got that dreaded phone call.

Grandmother, my last surviving grandparent, had a stroke.

We spent three days at the hospital, where she died peacefully in her sleep.

I thought I had my life together. After all, I use a planner and keep up with appointments and deadlines. I have emergency bags packed for the hospital. My house is fairly orderly.

No. I was wrong. I do not have things together.

Between all the hospital visits, we have rotten food in the fridge, every bit of counter space in the house is piled high with stuff, and I almost missed several appointments.

I look at my planner daily but then have to call someone and ask what day it is so I know which day to look at on my calendar.

I'm tired, emotionally drained, and terrified of the way my epilepsy kid is acting.

All of this stress came together yesterday when I was to do a Bible reading at Grandmother's funeral. It was from the Book of Wisdom. I pre-read it and it was an easy reading.

I walked up to the podium and opened the marked page. I checked that it was from the Book of Wisdom, and started reading.

About 20 seconds in, I knew I had messed up and read the wrong thing. The passage was not the beautiful one that my aunt had chosen, but one with a different message.

Each of you is a planner person, so you probably are a perfectionist. It's in our nature. 

You can imagine my horror at reading the wrong thing.

But I powered through and sat down in the pews of the church.

I should have been full of anxiety. I should have freaked out over making a mistake. That's what I normally do if I am less than perfect.

Instead, I decided that God or the universe or even my subconscious wanted me to make that mistake. The reading was the one that needed to be read in that moment. 

I needed to make that mistake in front of everybody. I needed to be imperfect. 

I keep imagining my grandmother saying, "it's okay, Kris. Nobody will notice." I can hear her voice, as clear as if she were sitting next to me.

Only a couple of people even knew and they were gracious about it. 

I realized that I can't be perfect all the time.

Sometimes, I just need to be good enough.

Etcetera.

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