Perfecting

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Call it a product of lots of work and little time, or maybe classes which all seem to share threads despite being almost wholly unrelated, but lately I've been thinking a lot about how powerless I am in my own skin.

I talk too much.

Or maybe it's powerful.  I am powerful in my own skin.  I can do things, be things, try things.  I don't have to do it for anyone but me.  I don't have to do it unless I want to.  I can look at the map and choose the road and see where it goes.  And be okay even if I get turned around.

I am a bonafied know-it-all.

It's funny.  I haven't noticed myself getting older.  It just sort of happened.  Snuck up while I was napping.  Little spots on the back of my hands, wrinkles around my mouth, gray hair.  I've settled into my thirties, somehow, just in time to get ready to leave them.  Mid-way, mid-life, mid-me.  I'm not excited about forty in four years, but it's coming anyhow.  Coming quick, filling up the blurry lines between hours.  So I guess I better get used to it. 

I am a lazy housewife, a distracted mother, an impatient teacher.

I didn't think I'd be finishing my degree at thirty-six.  (At times I didn't think I'd be finishing my degree at all.)  But, here I am, ten weeks away - give or take - and staring down the barrel of what's next.  What is next?  New places?  New faces?  New houses?  New goals?  I'm not sure and the waiting is rough.  But, next is coming anyhow.  Coming fast.  I can't see it yet, but I can hear its breathing.

I am incredibly selfish.  And often pretty mean.

I've spent a lot of time - wasted a lot of time - not measuring up.  At least in my own mind.  It's really easy to be not quite good enough.  Not faithful enough.  Not pretty enough.  Not funny enough.  Not friendly enough.  Not smart enough.  Not skinny enough.  Not creative enough.  Not engaged enough.  Enough for what?  Enough for who?  These are questions I'm only just now beginning to ask myself.  Who set my bar higher than I can reach it?  Was it me?  Why'd I do that? 

I am not very good at finishing what I started.

I have only just begun to realize how empty my own promises are.  If I can just lose X pounds, everything will be perfect.  If I would just read my scriptures more, pray more, be more faithful, everything will be perfect.  If I would just take more time to look pretty, everything would be perfect.  But, even if I do all those things, everything won't be perfect.  More importantly, it will still be okay.  I will still be happy.  I will still be loved.  I will still have many blessings.  I will still be me.  Of course, I can always want more, work more, try more.  Not because I need to measure up, but because I already do measure up.

I am already enough.

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