“Where do you get all those ideas from?” someone said to me the other day. “You have such an interesting life, you do so many things… You make things, and write books, and go to conferences, and go travelling…”
True. I do all those things. They are pretty special, which is why I write about them in this blog, and I’m very grateful that I can do them and that I can share them with you.
However, looking at the blog this past year, it has been rather full of stuff I do and places I’ve gone, and there hasn’t been very much about what my life really looks like in between all those “highlighty” events. You know, those long periods when I didn’t post anything, not even a “Wordless Wednesday” photo. When the blog was staring at me accusingly from the bottom of the long list of things that I needed to do, and that I, as per usual, didn’t do terribly well.
You see, while there are lots of things I can do, there are also lots of things I’m not very good at. I wish I were, but I guess there’s always a trade-off, isn’t there? You can’t be good at everything.
So in the name of balancing out the record a bit, here are a few things that I’m not good at. Never was, and, most likely, never will be.
–Growing plants. I’ve posted pictures of my garden that make it look quite lovely, but, oh my. Those are very select images. The amount of money I’ve spent at nurseries on seedlings, the number of vegetable varieties I’ve tried to grow, the labour I’ve invested in trying to establish garden beds, all of which just… died… As for indoors, the houseplants I’ve killed are myriad; I only keep plants around that can tolerate the utmost neglect* (“Oh, you poor thing, you look dead! I probably should have watered you a month ago…”).
–Keeping my house clean. On my “About” page I claim to live with, aside from my family and Steve, “a large number of dust bunnies.” That is not a joke. Okay, fine, it is—please laugh at it. But it’s also true. Well, I actually call them dust kitties, because they consist of a considerable proportion of cat hair. It’s not that I don’t see them congregating in the corners, I just don’t get around to dealing with them. And boy, can they ever pile on the guilt trips! For something that doesn’t have any eyes they can sure give you a nasty look every time you walk past them.
–Oven-roasting or barbecuing meat. I make a mean pot roast, but oven-cooked beef or barbecued steaks tend to fall in the neighbourhood of shoe leather, while an oven-roasted chicken is either still half-raw or overcooked, but hardly ever tender and juicy and succulent and cooked all the way through when I want it to be.
–Being consistent with things I ought to or even want to do. Like writing blog posts. Or going for walks. Or flossing my teeth. Or practising drawing or music skills. Or any of the many other good things we all know we should or would like to be doing.
I could go on for some time here, but you get the picture (I won’t post one of the dust kitties. Because, eew).
Earlier in the year, I wrote a post about Mme Curie and the Parallel Lives Fallacy. A friend of mine responded and pointed me to the work of Oliver Burkeman, who recently published a book called Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.
In a nutshell, what Burkeman points out is that we’re all on limited time here on earth. Four thousand weeks, give or take (which amounts to roughly eighty years), that’s it, that’s all each of us gets. And, as I was saying with my analogy of the plate full of meatballs, you cannot pack more into those four thousand weeks than what fits. If you choose to spend Week #2834 on one particular activity (say, digging a garden bed), you’re not going to spend it on another (writing a blog post, for example). Poof, that week is gone. There is only one week in a week, etc. And what that comes down to, Burkeman says, is that you have to choose. You have to choose what to do well, choose what matters. And choose what to suck at.
I suck at things—and let me tell you, it sucks. When you’re born a perfectionist, it hurts to not be able to do all those things that you’re told by—well, something, somebody, the last novel you read, the ubiquitous “they”—you should be able to do. But the reality is, that’s a hurt we have to live with. That I have to live with. It’s embarrassing to be this way.
But also (and again I’m quoting Burkeman here, in spirit, if not verbatim) to realise your limitations is also immensely freeing. I can’t do everything, and that, as I’m trying to get through my head and into my heart, is okay. Because it’s true for everyone; it is, in fact, to be human.
I’ll never definitively win the battle with the dust kitties. But maybe we can come to a truce. And meanwhile, I’ll admire those of you who have lush, thriving gardens and tidy and serene homes, with a juicy roast in the oven that you return to after your daily run. You are a gifted person, and I salute you.
Life, the Universe, and Things I’m Not Good At. And that’s okay.
*Spider plants. Spider plants are amazing.
