Progress over Perfection

My inertia has been debilitating lately. Maybe it’s the depth of winter that we are in - knowing we still have about 2 to 3 months of gray and rain here - my mind and body still wanting to hibernate. Maybe it’s the intrusive thoughts of “why even try?”. You’re a renter - this home is temporary, you’ll have to fix things when you leave, you can’t do exactly what you want, etc. Maybe it’s trying to juggle my days between caring for my son full-time, life, and rest. Maybe it’s my perfectionism…

I laughed when my husband mentioned my perfectionism in a “discussion” one day. He wanted me to get up, stop being a vegetable, and work towards my goals - or at least do something that would make me smile. When he said perfectionism, I scoffed. I am *not* a perfectionist (instant headache from the eye-roll that accompanied the scoff). And then I marinated over what he said. And it didn’t feel good. It felt raw. It’s weird how being presented with the truth can be so jarring. I’ve never considered myself a perfectionist, but I can confidently say I am. Looking around me, I don’t see perfection - quite far from it. But what I see is incompleteness. I see a list of want-to-do’s. I see fear. I am so scared of my projects not being perfect that I simply don’t start them. Where did this come from? That is a discussion for my therapist and I.

I have been sitting on some thrifted picture frames for years now. Back in 2019, I had a goal of putting up a gallery wall in our rental in San Francisco. I purchased a gorgeous picture rail, took photos of all the artwork, measured each piece, used photoshop to create a mock-up of the placement of frames with accompanying art…and I never put one screw into the wall. The artwork sat in our dining room for months. I remember having a conversation with my therapist and him saying, “this sounds like death by a thousand cuts”. No truer words had been spoken. I looked at that artwork every single day, multiple times a day, and every time I did, I winced. Just put it up. You’ve done the hard part. Just put the damn rail up. The rail, chains, and artwork were packed up and moved to our new home in 2022 where they sit in a closet.

But today, at 3pm with an airpod in one ear and my son toddling around, I went and dug through our closet. I pulled out frames, photos, artwork, and more frames and smiled. My art choices have changed and along with it, my inertia. There are 4 frames on a wall. 4. Each nail went into the wall no less than 3 times. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s progress.