perfectly imperfect.

i don't know if anyone else does this or not. but i always do it. i go to clean my room because there is crap everywhere. so i basically need to just pick up everything and then vacuum, so it should take 30 minutes. but instead i take this crazy trip down memory lane. i start cleaning out a drawer and find a movie stub and remember that i loved the soundtrack... and there i am, 3 hours later, candles aflame everywhere, trying to youtube the songs on these soundtracks. and then i forgot i had a card from someone stuck in a purse and read it... and there i am, writing them back. and today i got excited about the prospect of spring and tried to move the shoes in my closet around based on how i think the weather will progress in the coming days. now not only boots are in the front row... and here i am, wearing the most perfect wedges in the history of the world (thank you again cor, i love them) to vacuum. and for some reason this room cleaning ritual then makes me end up needing chai floating in a pool of porcelain in my hand and my laptop, on my lap. the room always gets messier before it gets cleaner... so about halfway through i just drop the dream of spotless space and write.

and like the cleansing stroll my mind takes as i clean this room - it does the same thing as i clean this desktop. i find random poems on the desktop, half-finished and look through pictures from 2007. and for some reason, it's really easy for me to get lost in this world of what was. perhaps because the natural way to look is forward. but i think it's good to look back too. because at one point, these small things - these movies and letters and shoes - were what we saw when we looked forward. and firmly, but comfortably the big things nestle themselves in between the small. an ebb and flow of silly seconds, mystery's of moments, bad weeks, and growing years. a journey of the past and the future and all the lost (and gained) time in between. the next time this weird room thing presents itself to me, the movies won't be in theaters anymore and the other shoes will proudly say 'pick me' from the front row.

and the swirl of time and space and people and experiences, for better or worse, and the way that it all perfectly blends together to make us better always impresses me. because the process is always annoying (well, not always, but you know what i mean)... because the process takes time and sometimes is hard. so we need patience and we need to trust that our cup will always be full. we need to trust in the fact that all that jazz brews up perfectly together, with strong flavors and wafts of loveliness and a warmth that calms our soul. like a simple cup of coffee can. the past two weeks were that balanced mixture of good and bad, calm and stressed, struggle and joy... the mixture that is perfectly imperfect. i almost got punched in the face and spent $100 on gas, but i also baked new things and saw my precious little brother and took lots of fun pictures. the mixture that shows me that life is a seesaw is the mixture i love. and i love it because it reminds me that it's up to me to keep putting the energy in. even when i'm tired, and even when i'm on cloud nine. because on this seesaw, when you lower yourself, someone else is raised. and in the end, that makes all the difference. that is what stretches us and makes us who we were made to be.

the past two weeks i've gotten to spend time with lots of people i really love. thank you for loving me and knowing me. thank you for making me laugh. now more than ever i am thankful and rejoicing that home can reside within us, and not only the places where we happen to be.

happy monday!