Progress, not perfection.

Perfection is self-abuse of the highest order, Anne Wilson Schaef.

10 years ago, even 5 years ago, I would not have thought this to be true. I spent my 20’s and most of my 30’s looking for perfection…in myself, my job, my house and my children. I was under the misguided impression that life was about doing everything just right and to the very best of my ability. While a noble goal, it was also exhausting. My joy during those days came not from within, but from others. I glowed over the comments on the house and everything always in its place. I basked in the praise from bosses, coworkers and professors as they wondered how I managed to keep everything afloat. Little did they know that behind this seemingly calm, organized life, there were sleepless nights, headaches and poor parenting. I was exhausted most days from balancing so many things on my plate. While on the outside, all appeared to be perfect, inside I was falling apart.

I managed to keep this persona of perfection up for nearly 15 years and then one day, I just couldn’t get out of bed. Some days I managed to drag myself out and to the shower by the time the kids came home from school. I would toss together some dinner and be back in bed by 6 or 7 o’clock. This went on for months. When I did leave the house, it was only with the assistance of serious medication. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I simply could not understand how I went from an over-achieving, A-type personality, multi-tasking, fulltime employee, mother of 3 to a procrastinating, barely functional, unemployed, medicated mess. I had every medical test known to man, took every vitamin recommended and followed any remotely useful suggestion offered by anyone and everyone, all to no avail.

Then one day, I came to the realization that I had simply burned the candle at both ends until there was no more left to burn. For years my body had been giving me little hints that it was time to slow down. I was so busy that I didn’t have time to pay attention. I simply ignored the signs and went on. Until one day my body, my mind and even my soul just said NO. No more working all hours of the day. No more running in 10 directions at once. No more PTA, Scouts, Sunday School. No more Volunteer Extraordinaire. It was time for a break and since I wasn’t smart enough to take it on my own, my body was going to do it for me. There was no concern about being dragged kicking and screaming into a slower pace. I didn’t even have the motivation to lift a toe, let alone a whole foot to kick. It was as though my inner clock had slowly wound itself down.

Looking back to that time, I can see now that it was a necessary evil. It brought me to the realization that life is meant to be savored. Each moment in time has its own flavor. A flavor for your soul to wrap itself around and delight in. Enjoy those moments. Embrace them. Let them wash over you, drenching you in color. Allow the flavors to blend like a fine wine. Open yourself to the melodies in the twinklings of time.
Just ‘be’ in the fullness of time.

Our goal as we travel on this amazing journey is progress, not perfection. At the end of each day, if you are farther; emotionally, spiritually or physically, than you were the day before, you have succeeded.

The Web of Life

I have often referenced my life as the grand-daughter of a Farmer, and I have long known that this has affected my every decision since beginning the search for my authentic self. However, it wasn’t until recently that I realized just how closely that I am walking in the shoes of my family and how closely I am connected to them.

When I went home this past July to visit my Grandmother upon the loss of Grandpa at the age of 88, I had no agenda other than to wrap myself up in the warmth of my family and refuel my soul with their love. Allthough it was a short visit it was long enough to catch up with family that I hadn’t seen in several years, though we keep in touch online.

One afternoon, my middle child, Mason and I had the pleasure of having Grandma all to ourselves. Everyone else was home with their families and recuperating from the emotional drain of the past few weeks. It was a sunny afternoon, with a cool breeze blowing through the sheer window dressing. We spent some time that day in Grandpa’s bedroom going through his life both tangibly and spiritually, touching his treasures, laughing over little things that we came across and helping Mason to see his Grandpa in a new light, in a time before his body had begun to show the harshness of time. Mason never knew Grandpa without the infirmities that eventually took him from us. It was a wonderful experience to bring Grandpa to life through pictures, knick-knacks and stories of a time when life was simpler.

Grandma was in a melancholy mood, just right for opening the flood gates holding back 50 years of memories. We learned more that afternoon than I knew that I was missing.

We learned that Grandpa’s Dad was never a farmer at heart. He had chosen to do the only thing that he felt qualified to do after being ousted from his life’s passion as a cheese-maker, due to a life threatening case of pernicious anemia. At the time, his doc told him that the only way to get better was to get out of the factories and into the fresh air. So, being banned from the factories, he took a step back in the cheese-making-chain and went into the dairy industry. Thanks to the hard work of his three sons, he was able to make a go of it and support his family.

For years, they all worked hard to keep food on the table, a roof over their heads and clothes on their backs. Over time, Grandpa’s older brothers grew up and grew away. This left him handling the farm and now starting a family of his own. Sometime around the mid 1950’s, small time dairy farms started to fall to the larger farms and milk producers. The industrialization of farming had begun. Now, they were faced with a decision. To keep the dairy or let it go. Thankfully for those of us in subsequent generations, a compromise was reached and the dairy cows went, and in came beef cattle, a beautiful group of wooly headed Herefords which would become a constant sight on the hills of the farm for the next 30 years.

By this point in the story, my heart was filled with a yearning for more, more history, more knowledge and more memories. I could have listened for days and days to all of the things that Grandma was sharing. Some of them I had heard before, some were new. Some were even considered risqué back in the times. But all of them were filling me with a sense of who I am, where I come from.

The story of Great Grandpa’s cheese-making passion had brought sharp, burning tears to my eyes. My heart filled with that yearning again, for this past summer, I had begun to experiment with the art of cheese-making. With this adventure, I had unknowingly, created another connection from my life here in the hills of Southwest Virginia to a life 700 miles away and more than 70 years ago. The web of my life is spinning along, anchored in time by yesterday and all of the days before.

As I come closer and closer to finding my authentic self, and what brings me true joy, I know that there will be many links to the past. Some of them will be painful, some will make me laugh and some will make me cry. I hope that the tears will wash away the pain, some of which is buried deep in scar tissue of old wounds. I know that ultimately, this is the true path. I hope you continue to follow along and one day soon, begin your own journey to a joyful life.

Joy from within

Well friends, it has been a while since I have had the heart to be here writing. It's been hard to write about yoy and my quest for happiness when things have been so chaotic and painful in our lives.

But I realized this morning that joy does not from outside, it comes from within. To let someone else control what your heart feels is stifling to the joy that resides there. And that is what I have been doing. I have been allowing outside influences to affect the joy that I hold in my heart.

One of my favorite authors, Sarah Ban Breathnach states in her book, Simple Abundance, "Inadvertantly, we become the authors of our own misfortune. And so we struggle from day to day, from crisis to crisis, bruised and battered by circumstances without realizing that we always have a choice."

From here on out, I will remember that I have a choice. I can let the drama and the chaos around me, effect my joyous spirit or I can choose to let it wash over me and away from me like a salty, white-capped wave, taking with it the hurt, the dispair, the pain and the sorrow.

I can rise from the chaos and the drama, knowing that I have chosen to continue on my journey to a joyous life untouched and unscathed by negativity, dis-harmony and ignorance.

I will choose to trust myself, accentuate the positive, dream the impossible dream and become the person that I truly want to be. I will write my story in the prose of passion, with the the flavor of fullfillment and the scent of sweet success. I will be the author for only I know the secret life lusts of my soul.

I will look inward and find my hearts delight. This is the Holy Grail at the end of the Joyful Journey.