The Little Engine that Could

Have you ever had one of those moments where you know you should do something and maybe you even want to do it but you are not exactly sure how? Well, this is one of those times. I got on and wrote this whole big post and immediately deleted it. Why do we do that? Reading over it, I told myself that I used too many words, that the point was not clear enough, and that the content was pretty boring-best to start over and write something people wouldn't fall asleep reading. Wow, I am self critical and pretty darn merciless. My whole life I have been this way. Telling myself made up stories of how much room I have to improve. At times I have realized it and tried to love myself a little more, but somehow I always end up right back in the same place deleting perfectly good blog posts and avoiding going bowling so nobody knows that I throw almost exclusive gutter balls. Just yesterday it was pointed out to me very bluntly that it is impossible to be perfect and it is impossible to be happy trying to be perfect and that I need to stop telling myself that my worth is dependent on others viewing me as such. So here I am trying to figure out how to not just acknowledge my imperfections, but to embrace them and love them. Imperfections are what make us human, give us depth, and provide for learning experiences. So why is it so hard to love them and be glad for their existence? Or to love myself and be glad for my unique challenges and shortcomings and quirks? I don't know the answer, this is not one of those things where I ask a rhetorical question and then give some sage answer. I am legitimately and very humbly asking how you find your own happiness in the face of reality. Don't get me wrong, my life is pretty good. I am just doing my best to grow and sometimes it takes a little help. I am taking it day by day and hoping that each centimeter will count. Just like the roots of my ever growing hair that are so starkly black against my dyed and fading platinum blonde locks. I think emotional growth is a lot like that. Day by day progress is hard to see but over the length of weeks or months or years we begin to see a striking difference. Today I had a win. In and of its self, it is a pretty little w but I know in the future it will build into possibly the biggest W of my life. I can't forget how much those count. I so easily could tell myself that it was an hour of my life doing something that could have the potential for major failure. Instead I am going to call today a glowing success and think about all of the wonderful possibilities and forget the past failures. Things can only go up from here. I can be real and expect things to be hard and know I will fall on my face but I can also be fair and know that it is ok to fail, life is allowed to be hard but that doesn't automatically make it bad. I have every right to be miserably imperfect and still choose not to be miserable. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.