The recent snow made for a beautiful backdrop and reminder that I live on a floating rock in just one solar system in a universe that exceeds my comprehension.
I’m a work in progress and learning to “go with the flow”. I spend more time anxious about silly things like when I’m going to get to folding the laundry or actually making a meal than I care to admit. And despite my sleep meditation routine, at least one night a week I wake up and can’t sleep for several hours in the middle of the night while I do a full day of work in my brain.
And then, I stare up into the clear sky and grin at the winter lights I convinced my husband to put on the trees this year, and my brain quiets a bit. The hum of ‘to do’ items, curious questions and feelings of overwhelm fade away and all I can hear is…
Oberon chewing loudly on his chuckit ball.
AND
my heartbeat and breathing.
Last weekend, I helped with an event in town - think mini-golf on ice.
You see that yellow board in the background on its side? That was one of the obstacles I created to be placed over the hole so folks would need to be very precise with their putt - like getting the golf ball through the dragons mouth on the last hole in summer mini-golf.
I knew that my pieces on the back to support it against the wind weren’t the strongest, but I had hopes with sandbags and some weight, they’d be good to go.
They weren’t.
This one completely broke and toppled over. And in the middle of the golf rounds, in the middle of a frozen lake, there really wasn’t much I could do besides accept the reality. I haven’t lost a single moment of sleep from this error. I learned a lot about how to build better supports and structures for future years, and I became part of the course giving folks a target to aim for and offering “extra points” if they somehow hit me from where they tee’d off.
The previous version of me would have sent a formal apology to the organizers of the event after spending several nights struggling to fall asleep.
It’s easier for me today (as in this general time frame of life) to look at mistakes, mishaps or ‘failures’, and take something away from it as a learning. Along with taking accountability when I make a mistake and apologizing when I know my intent may have had a very different impact.
A prior version of myself would spend oodles of time stressing and anxiously re-living each moment of a conversation or situation and evaluating all the ways that I should have been better. Planning all the apologies that were probably never needed about moments that many others never thought about twice.
I’m really glad I’m not that version of myself anymore. Especially when I consider how tiny I am and how short my life really is in the grand scheme of the entire universe and the construct of time.
I’m grateful to now have moments when I get to stare up at the moon under a beautiful snowy tree and remember that my worth isn’t tied to my success’ or failures.