I met my best friend when we were 11. I went away to summer camp for 4 weeks and she was the girl I was put in a tent with. I walked into the tent that day and she was sitting there, all smiles and really excited to meet me. We hit it off right away. She was friends with everyone. And she has always had this amazing quality to her. She has never ever been afraid to do anything and make a fool of herself. She sings more off key of anyone I know yet was the first to lead us in song at campfire. She is the most uncoordinated person I know yet she’s also a triathlete. She’s a total goofball and what I love most about her is that she doesn’t feel like she has to be the best at something, or heck, even good at something, in order to do it. She just does things with gusto and enjoys herself despite not being excellent at it.

I have begun to learn how to do this. I remember as I grew up being afraid, not to try something, but afraid that once doing it, I wouldn’t be good at it. I didn’t want to try a new activity or sport or craft or anything at all unless I felt confident I could do it well. Of course, that sounds silly. You learn to do things well by practicing and doing them over and over again. Not everyone can water ski the first time they try. Only one person is going to win a marathon.

By learning to let myself do things not perfectly, I have discovered the beauty in doing. I enjoy things despite not being great at them. I am not the craftiest, most creative person, but I enjoy the pursuit. I enjoy thinking of creative things to do with my kids and creative things to do around my home. By embracing the imperfection in what I do, I am allowing myself to discover new and wonderful things to fill my time with.

I can make things that are flawed and I can come in in the middle of the pack in a running race and enjoy every moment of doing those things now. By changing my mindset to one that is about living my life, doing things, trying something new, I am realizing how much I was missing by being afraid of embarrassing myself or failing. I have adjusted my view of failure from being that of doing something not well to not doing something at all.

The journey, the pursuit, the process of learning and experiencing is the best success of all. Embracing that I can do things imperfectly makes everything more fun and fulfilling.

When I think of our journey into buying our fixer-upper and what led us to this, I think of how afraid I was. I wasn’t afraid of the things you would think I’d be afraid of. I was afraid that we wouldn’t be able to fix it up well. I was afraid it wouldn’t be perfect. Now, instead of fearing it being imperfect, I am glad it’s imperfect. I am glad for all the character, charm and quirks about my home. I am glad that I relented and gave in to the fear and instead found out that what I was afraid of is the best part of all.