I think a story is in order here. I graduated from high school in 1975. I was raised in a house where knowledge and intellect were important, but some of the more everyday things were less critical. For example, my mom believed dust on top of a piece of furniture didn't count unless someone made a mark in it. So, writing your name in the dust on the top of the console TV had consequences. And ... writing my sister, Jaye's, name brought comedy.
Anyway, I convinced mom it would be appropriate to have some type of graduation party. I didn't want a "cake and mints" type of event, I wanted something with real food people would come to after they went to all the other parties. We started the plans and process of getting ready.
One of the things mom wanted to do as part of the preparation was to clean all the drapery in the house. This was a big undertaking, but it was important to mom, so we dug in. We took all the drapery off the rods and took the drapery hooks out of the drapes. We put the hooks in a bag as we would need them when the drapes came back from the dry cleaner. This process took several days, so there was the period of time when we were living in a house with almost no window coverings. It was just part of the fun. Finally, the drapes were cleaned and picked up. We were ready to reverse the process. Obviously, the first thing we needed were the drapery hooks. They were nowhere to be found. We looked in all every single place you would expect to find them. We knew they had been put in a place "we would all remember." Eventually, mom had to drive to Ottumwa to buy new drapery hooks, a time and money drain we hadn't expected. All ended well as the house looked great and the party went off without a a hitch. We never found the drapery hooks.
We lost mom in early 1988, so in the middle of that year we started cleaning out the house. One of us, Jaye or myself, cleaned out the junk drawer in the kitchen. Clear in the back corner of the drawer was a bag full of drapery hooks. Yes, they were exactly where we would have expected them to be, exactly where we had looked for them in 1975. Why had we not been able to see them then? I have no answer to this question, but I will tell you with certainty they had much more value in 1988 than they had in 1975. In 1988 they brought laughter to a couple of kids who really needed some relief. We didn't agonize over how it had happened. We didn't ask ourselves if we were getting old. We howled at the situation and thought about how funny Mom would have thought this was. We didn't question ourselves, we just lived the moment.
In my workshop, I have six tape measures. There are times I can not find a single one of them. Frustrating, yes, but I know at this point it is part of my process. I tend to walk around with a tape in my hands and then I'll set it down to work on a piece of the process and don't think about it until the next time I need it. When I need it, I expect it will be "right there" and if it isn't, I start searching the eight hundred square feet of my shop. Typically, I find multiples. It always makes me laugh, especially when I remember Mom and the drapery hooks. When I worked for Payless, on a very regular basis, I'd take a tape measure home on my belt and always forget it the next morning. That usually meant I would take a bunch of them back to work one day.
Long and short, give yourself a break. Just because you do something differently now than you did in the past, or sometimes you think it may take you longer, be okay with it. It is part of the journey we are on and part of the tapestry making up our lives. I hope you enjoy today, and find a little quiet way to laugh at yourself, just a bit.
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