Gracefully

I wrote this post last night and scheduled it to publish today, but it disappeared. I don't get it. Apparently the sophisticated stuff on Blogger (eye roll) is too much for me to handle. Anyway I think I can write it a little better today, so here goes.

It starts with a funny story told on myself.

Monday I went to pick Z up from preschool. It had rained in the morning, or maybe snowed a bit, leaving the parking lot a little muddy. One good mucky spot was right outside where I parked my glorious, dented-up, Obama-stickered Honda minivan. Shush, it is paid for and works great.

On the way in, I stepped in the mud, unaware. I wiped my feet and vowed not to make the same mistake twice.

So, back to the car with my little person, I executed a graceful leap over the muddy spot. If you know me at all you should already be laughing. Wait, there's more.

I launched myself directly into the door frame. The contact point was the middle of the top of my forehead. It smarted. I might have seen a few stars. I couldn't stop the tears, but I did manage to get in and close the van door for some privacy and then laugh and cry at the same time. Z was a little perplexed but someday she will have PMS, too, and understand how it makes you klutzy and emotional. I wonder if she will remember her silly mama.

I make all kinds of mistakes lately. Things that make me feel dumb, things that make me sorry. That is just a particularly amusing example.

I think it's probably normal, as you become older and more experienced, to be more honest about your own shortcomings. It makes me less likely to judge others. Sometimes it makes me able to try harder to overcome things that challenge me, things like being patient when someone is sick or injured and my selfish plans are derailed.

But I do still like myself. I can laugh at myself, as we see in the story above. I can see the good in myself. Truly. This is a kind of balance I will probably never achieve in my physical body.

So, no more leaping.