I feel like I could relate to
her decision, so much so, so much said that I had been wanting to say. Not that it's necessarily life changing, more along the lines of life tweaking, something small that makes a big difference.
I have a confession.
I have a scrapbook that I haven't started because I'm afraid that the pages won't be
perfect. That I have to get better before I start. But how do I get better if I don't start? But what if I start and it's all wrong? What if I look back years from now and think of how crappy my scrapbook looks, picking out all of the flaws?
But what if I never start, and those memories are not recorded?
The issue here is that I need to start, and learn to accept the imperfections. One of the things that I enjoy most it to look back at pictures that were kept in albums. History recorded. The other day I was given an album from my aunt that had a picture of my parents when they were dating.
DATING.
Also, the album contained a picture of my dad's first car, and oh the stories it provoked from my mother about that first car.
A picture of my grandparent's wedding anniversary.
Showers thrown before my own parent's marriage.
Those are so precious to me. They are nowhere close to perfect. And in that, lies the secret. Someone was willing to splay out their imperfect record of day to day life. Of what mattered to them. And what was reflected to me, was the perfection of a imperfect world. A perfect gift. I'm not as concerned about giving future generations a gift, but to keep a record is something that is important to me. I get so much joy and realize so many blessings in being able to look back at the chronicle of my life so far. I don't live in a perfect world, so I should not expect that my pictures need to be edited before they are shared, my words don't need to be publishable before they are written, and my scrapbooking skills definitely do not need to be flawless before I have even started.
I had a shirt that I didn't wear anymore because those puffy sleeves make my shoulders look huge! Huge I tell you. I was walking it out to the "donate" pile when a wonderfuly horrible idea crossed my mind. I could re-fashion it! Oh heavens...
So I cut off those puffy, shoulder bulking sleeves (that felt good), and then the neckline and got to work. I managed to jam the sewing machine, but after much determination, and about an hour later, my Mom got it to release. Thanks Mom! Did I mention how great my mom is? I started by pinning one of the sleeves the way that I wanted it, then I got tired of pinning and figured it wasn't all that necessary and set straight away to tacking it down. I took the material from the sleeves and a few pearls and added a couple of flowers to the front. It turned out pretty well, didn't manage to grab a photo of the day I wore it. I think my hair was super out of whack, I.E. I didn't do it at all. Anyway, hopefully I'll post a picture of it soon. I think Mom was shocked that I could whip something like that out.
