I had a friend over that I haven’t seen in awhile and we sat at my dining room table to chat. As the conversation waned she commented on the table. “What a beautiful dining room table you have,” she said as she examined the espresso stained wood. I looked at the table, too, but I saw scratches, and white shadows from hot pots and chips of raw wood showing through the corners.
I caught myself in my inner perfectionist mode. Like that game that children play where the head pops up and you take a hammer and bang it down but every time I do, more heads pop up and it gets harder and harder to bang all the heads down. My head used to be like that– a major voice that always pointed out the
imperfections, the little scratches here and there in my life that screamed out at me that I screwed up.
My head is not like that anymore. Is the voice gone? No way. Still there. Still pointing out the little scratches, fears, buts, what ifs, etc. But I don’t listen to them. They just exist, and float by.
I put my hand on the table and thought about how it was my first large furniture purchase with my husband. The memory of that purchase was fresh. That thought didn’t float by but got cradled in my heart.
