Blog #135: Things Don't Have to be Perfect to be Good

I love daydreaming. I think many people don't expect it from me, but I love just sitting and letting my mind wander, imagining the life I will live or the places I'll see or the people I'll meet. So, it's only natural that I spent a lot of time daydreaming about my life here in Chicago.

It included a nice apartment. A big kitchen, where I could cook for guests. Somewhere in the living room, which was connected to the kitchen because of the open floor plan, was my record player, where I put on vinyls while I cooked and entertained. There was yoga in the morning with the sun peering through my apartment's large windows, and wine on the balcony at the end of a long day at work. The city surrounded me, and I, naturally, became a part of it.

Ha!

That's not exactly the way it worked out.

I'm lying in bed in the basement of a house that belongs to a childhood friend's boyfriend's family. Neither the friend or the boyfriend are here... only his father and sister, who I met a mere five hours ago. This house isn't technically in the city of Chicago, but in a northwest suburb of the city a decent distance away. I don't have my own kitchen or large windows for my morning yoga or even a great place to set up my record player. In almost every way, it is very different from the scenario I had daydreamed.

Yet, it's still perfect.

Of course I wouldn't mind a nice sky rise apartment in the heart of Chicago, but I'm also looking forward to getting to know the family, and having the opportunity to access some nature and easily be more active here than I could be in the city. Plus, they kind of saved my butt in my time of desperation. For that, I am eternally grateful.

At the end of today, a long day, I am feeling two things: humbled and reassured.

I am feeling humbled, because this would only be possible with the help and generosity of others. I am feeling humbled because this is not the glamorous "city life" I had pictured in my mind. I am feeling humbled because things didn't work out the way I wanted them to.

I am also feeling reassured, realizing once again that things don't have to be perfect to be good.

I have struggled with perfectionism my whole life, and I used to let one tiny flaw ruin an entire situation for me. If something wasn't exactly how I imagined it, it wasn't worth having at all. Now, as I've grown, and as a result, seen and done many more things, I have realized that having such high expectation for everything, and being unimaginably disappointed when they're not met, is a recipe for disaster. It's not realistic for everything to work out perfectly all of the time! Yet, just because things aren't always "perfect," it also doesn't mean they're bad, or not worth experiencing.

So sure, this isn't the life I daydreamed I'd be living in Chicago this summer, but I think it's also going to be pretty great. It's not perfect, but nothing is, so I'm going to take what I've been so generously given and run with it.

Things don't have to be perfect to be good, and settling in tonight has done nothing but reassure me that this summer is going to be good.

I've been bad about taking pictures lately but this was my delicious first meal with the new family (and my family too).