Perfect imperfection. 

For just a flash this past weekend, as I sat in my trailer while camped out on a wine ride just miles down the road from my house, I thought of the things I didn’t get done this summer. Dreams, goals gone unrealized, and I was sad. But, even before I could actually get lost in the sadness I was reminded of all the things…. realized as the mule hee-hawed out my window….As if to serve as a wake up call to all the dreams, prayers, petitions, hopes, that came with this summer.

Things like; A friendship that is the easiest relationship I have ever been in… one that has allowed me to be freely me. Free to show up in whatever state I find myself and feel safe in knowing that there is no judgment attached to it. After hitting a batch of  mean girls.. this was a breath of fresh air. And, living the cowgirl life; albeit, looking vastly different then I had planned it out. But still, living it. Finding common adventures, and a new friendship with my hubby who is also enjoying a return to cowboying. I have also discovered a newness in my creativity, and in my writing……. I’ve managed settled into a safe space with the friends that I have had for a long period of time… Not that it wasn’t always there, it was just that I couldn’t allow it the ease that I was able to find in it this year. I, by some miracle, have made peace with allowing people to be and have the appropriate access to my heart, that they can be trusted with. I’ve had precious time with my kids, time that I didn’t know if I would ever have again. It was  just a few short years ago, when they were scattered to the winds, it seemed. I couldn’t imagine us all being in one place again.. but, as life often does, I was surprised.  Our family life is rich with the addition of our beautiful girls (our boys have chosen well), each of them adding a dimension to the family that is uniquely their own, one that adds depth, and style and purpose, and of course with the addition of beautiful grandson, Rhett. I don’t know that there could be anything more perfect.

If someone where to take just one snap shot of my life, I wonder the story they would conjure up.. My house is a deconstruction zone, full of incomplete projects. My health is chaotic at best. At 51 I still wonder what is out there for me. My writing; unrealized, on a good day.

For years, I got caught up in the rut of unrealized dreams. The would-haves, could haves, the have nots and lost dreams. Friendships gone wrong, and love denied. When those things are the focus, it is easy to  forget to focus on those things that are perfect.

I’m learning that life, love, relationships are all much like the aperture on my camera. If you are willing to focus the lens on the beauty, let the rest become a blurred background.. there is even beauty in the backdrop… those things that once caused pain, or confusion or… they now offer a multicolored backdrop – images that you cannot really make out, but wow they have a way of making the beautiful things shine even brighter, stand out a little more clearly. All of the sudden all those imperfect moments become perfect.. I’m learning that there is an odd, and wonderful perfect imperfection in this life of mine.. and I think I like it.