Sometimes we just have to let things go.  C&D helped me realize that.  Without C&D, I could work on a project as long as I wanted.  Even better, I could leave my little project-pieces all over the living room floor until I got back to them after dinner, after Friday, or after I started losing bits and deciding I needed to finish or put things away. 

After C&D, I found less time to start, and especially finish, my projects.  I couldn’t leave my project-pieces all over, as they were likely to be eaten, swept up, or deleted.  Sometimes I tried to work on my projects at night, quietly, pretending I didn’t need to sleep.  I managed okay, and I was pretty content with my projects and my apparent invincibility.

Then my brain broke, and I couldn’t pretend to not need sleep anymore.  (That doesn’t necessarily mean I always *get* the extra sleep, I just walk around knowing I would write and speak and listen and all-around be more present and not look like your hamster cornered by your housecat if I had just slept like I needed.  Excuse the rambly sentence, I’m tired.  And be thankful I now use spellcheck.)

So now it’s a little harder to finish a project, and because I have C&D and try to have some resemblance of a life (boring and ordinary as it may sound), it’s especially harder to finish a project to those former just-so  standards.  Sometimes, I just have to call something finished, and then just let it go.

For instance, this house.  I have a page-long list of chores (single line in small font) I have yet to do.  The downstairs walls aren’t all "right" and I need to repair some sheetrock.  I want to install vent fans in the bathroom, scrub the tile, fix our dumb gutters.  There’s more, but I’ll spare you.  Last year, these things really bothered me, and I saw them, these little imperfections, laughing at me.  But then something happened.  I’m just glad to have a house, and it’s clean.  Sort of.

So I’m writing this to explain to anyone who reads this–and remember, in the unlikely case I forget–why things are slow around here.

I want things to be right.

Here, I’m afraid of not being happy with my work.  And most, I’m afraid of not writing well enough and being misunderstood.

These days it’s hard to not only finish a project, but finish a project to my former perfectionist, just-so standards.  Sometime I just need to let things go.  I try.  But I still try hard to get things right, too.

Finally posted 19 October 2008.  I’m not sure what I was trying to say here, but I guess it’s good enough.

Matt:  Did it rain today?
David:  It did.  
Matt:  Where did the rain come from?
David:  It came from way up up up high.  It came from the sky.  There are holes in the sky.
Matt:  Holes?
David:  There are holes in the sky and when the holes open then the rain comes.   And sometimes, when the moon makes a hole in the clouds, you can see the holes in the sky.