A few times I have said, “Cleaning my room is my therapy.” This is a bit of an exaggeration, and I am totally in support of people who go to therapy. But seriously, I love the small sense of accomplishment and feeling of control during the process of cleaning. And for some reason I tend to start with the smallest places—the tangled necklaces, the receipts in my wallet, and the pencils cluttering my desk. Eventually I make my way to throwing out old clothes and re-matching socks that have made my dresser drawers almost impossible to open. But as I keep going, eventually the bed is made, clothes are off the floor and things are exactly where they belong, complete with the feeling that everything is as it should be.
I think in a way, that is a small picture of what life is like sometimes. In a state of uncomfortable messiness, my default is to perfect the closest thing in arms reach until my whole environment is safe and secure. After being repeatedly disappointed, it is easy to pull away from relationships. After failing at something and then quickly quitting, the mastery of a skill is never realized. In case you haven’t already noticed, I am a bit of a perfectionist. I like things organized just so, and I always take pride in a job well done. But the truth is, frustrations and let down’s are a given in any growth process. It is a harsh reality. Aiming for something bigger and brighter always brings out the mistakes to correct. This is life on Planet Earth.
So this brings me to blogging… I like the idea of blogging; I have definitely benefitted from other racer’s blogs. But every time I start to reveal anything human or uncomfortable in this process of preparing for the race, I immediately doubt myself and try to muster more polished words and intriguing phrases to captivate blog audiences everywhere on the World Wide Web! This is how my overly ambitious, over-achiever, over-thinking brain works. Pretty soon a blog post becomes a thesis of all things spiritual and noteworthy, yet understated and clever, all at the same time. So even after having my blog up and running for a few months now, I have posted nothing—all because I have been trying to make everything just right.
Thankfully, I came across a very compelling blog from a racer who has been on the field for several months now. Her reflections from work on the field revealed the messy and frustrating process of those “in between moments”—those un-glamorous nights spent sleeping in a tent outside and being annoyed with a team member, and then having to immediately deal with issues face to face. She went on to say she is not above saving day-old French fries in her purse for later. This was when I realized that this is the place God brought her on this trip: learning and growing from a place of messiness and imperfection. Her transparency and honesty was what moved me in her blog.
I hope to discover some of the same things she did: to accept that life is uncomfortable and frustrating at times, but yet that is when God’s glory shines the brightest. I am still learning to embrace who I am instead of trying to constantly cover up all my flaws and imperfections. And that is what I am trying to be—more of who I already am. If I am constantly trying to be perfect, I will never let anyone see the real me. And if I am so fearful of making mistakes, I will never go and do what I hope to accomplish in life. So with this first blog post, I am taking a chance to embracing the real me. World Race, here I come!
