Febuary 2025 Newsletter
Messing Up
Altar Ego
Because I hate to make msitakes,
today I practice messsing up.
Spell check tries to correct me,but
I thwart it, I INsist on my errirs,
retype what is right till its wrong.
It hurts a littel. And I like it,
that it hurts. a little. SEee:
I say to my inner prefectionist,
it’s kinda fun to fook up,
and soon Im laughing in the dark,
itching to stumble out teh door
and run passed the same choices I
‘ve always made, gigling
with this holy wreckless woman,
I liek her, I decid, as we blunder into the night.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
I got into a bit of a pickle with the 4-wheeler the other day. I was trailblazing a new trail on the hilly back part of the property. There are a lot of trees there, and plenty of fallen limbs as well. Maneuvering over and around branches while trying to keep the vehicle on the most level land was challenging. Add an autumn’s worth of wet, slippery leaves, and some large rocks covered by said leaves, and you’ve got a situation requiring a higher 4-wheeler skill level than what I posessed. At one point, my position didn’t feel “safe” and I got off the vehicle to decide the best course of action.
I don’t like messing up. I don’t like getting myself into scenarios that could end badly. I pride myself on making good decisions, for thinking through things before acting. I’m prudent, smart. Sometimes, I take risks, but they are calculated and careful. I think I know where my limits are.
Way back in my early childhood, for some reasons I won’t go into, I developed the role of perfectionist for myself. I wanted to do things as well as I possibly could and I judged myself harshly when those expectations were not met. My mantra was “Work to the point of excellence.” Ok, that sounds like a driven, intelligent, determined woman and I am, but I am also discovering that my grip on being perfect has caused me to suffer. I worked very hard to be excellent, but being human trumps everything else and humans aren’t perfect. We mess up. We make mistakes. We get ourselves into a bit of a pickle with a 4-wheeler on a slanted heavily treed ridgeline.
For the past year, I’ve been studying my personality and the persona I want to protect and present to the world. I want to be highly functioning and make wise decisions. I want to be respected and excellent. Yeah, yeah – all that’s good, but is it real? Does it bring joy or stress? I think it’s my natural tendency to want to achieve. I am driven, but when taken to an extreme level, trying to be perfect hurts. It is an avenue for suffering. One of my revelations has been that I don’t want to suffer any more than I have to. Why would I want to add suffering to an already busy life with more than enough potential for heavy stress?
Excuse me, may I sign up for another year of suffering please?
Ah . . . no. I don’t want that. I’m learning to hold certain standards a little less tightly. I’m learning that if I mess up, I can learn from it and laugh at it too. I don’t have to make everything ultra serious and weighted with the stone of unrealistic expectations. I can make a mistake and figure out how to correct it. That’s why I celebrate Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem above – all the mess ups and “fook up’s,” and at the end, the joy and the giggling, the pure exuberance in being free to “blunder.” I love it.
I got myself out of the 4-wheeler pickle. It required some thought and study of the slanted terrain. I put the vehicle in reverse, then low, the reverse, then low again, slowly gaining enough space to move out of the dangerous area. I haven’t repeated the mistake.
This month, I challenge you to toy with your mistakes and mess ups. Smile at them. Laugh at them. Let them see they aren’t going to make you suffer. They are going to help you settle into your holier humanity – which isn’t at all perfect, but entirely beautiful nonetheless.
Blessings,
Sandy
P.S. I can’t let this go unsaid. If you noticed the misspelling of the word “February” at the top of the page, that was intentional. I wanted to see what it felt like to let a mistake stand on the ground undisturbed. Obviously, I’m still a work in progress because I had to tell you, lest you think I’m less than perfect!