Grace not perfection.  It’s been on my mind and in my heart lately.  But that’s scary.  I’m a perfectionist, I want everything to be just so, so how I can possibly shift this point of few?

I first heard this phrase from Emily Ley, I used to follow her social media religiously.  She’s very inspiring and while I don’t keep as close tabs on her current happenings as I used to, this is one thing she’s preached over and over again and I have held onto.

Photography: Hetler Photography

Currently, I have a long list of wants (but we’ll limit it to a few):

I want my home to be clean (and stay clean) and to be styled perfectly.

I want to lose some extra weight that just keeps hanging on and has been a constant source of insecurity.

I want my floral studio to be 100% complete and ready for the summer season.

I want to rid myself of this feeling of uncertainty as we’re in a season of change, and I feel as though my mind is being tossed around on a rollercoaster whose carts are headed in twelve different directions.

I want my garden and yard to be majorly improved over last year.

I want to have an amazing summer and am so glad that warmer weather is finally here.

And one huge thing that I’ve been obsessing over lately is this space.  This journal right here. The idea to relaunch as TownLine Journal was on my mind for quite some time before I actually pulled the trigger and decided to open up my world a little more.  I plotted and schemed and planned and since I’m such a planner in nature, I can often fall into a trap of planning, planning and then doing a little more planning, to the point that I’m too exhausted to actually take action.  Not only do I normally look before I leap, but I also analyze, calculate and study all possible outcomes before I even think about jumping.

I was trying to go against my own nature, and so I updated my website and went live before it was 100% perfect.  I figured I could do a little tweaking along the way.  I was asking for grace as I waited for perfection (while full and well knowing that it would never really be perfect, but that’s what I was going to strive for).

It’s been over a month since the relaunch and I’ve found myself posting less and less, ignoring my editorial calendar and schedules because I’m embarrassed that I’ve yet to fix the shortcomings of this journal.  It will as some point separate my wedding posts from my lifestyle posts and all links will function properly, along with the new domain.  But I need help and the person I’ve hired to do this is not working in the same time schedule as I am.  Of course no one knows this and I’m sitting here feeling judged and inadequate when in reality the situation is completely out of my control and I highly doubt that any of my readers are as annoyed by the poor organization of the space as I am.  I should probably focus my energies onto the issues I actually do have control of, which is a huge portion of the list above.

My main point is this, I think it’s really easy for us to get bent out of shape about the imperfections in our lives, but overlook these same obstacles in others.  We feel like we’re alone in the struggle and we’re not. Not only do we need to be kind and show grace to one another, but we also need to remember to give yourself some grace, cut yourself some slack and live life – as messy and imperfect as it is – because it’s the only one you have.

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