What Time Is It?
I’ve always wanted to build one of those shipping container houses. It’s my Bucket List item that has its own Pinterest board full of elaborately stacked shipping containers turned into unique, aka industrial chic, homes. I have dozens of design ideas and visions of a finished product. The initial design process and the finished product bring the excitement. The implementation of that finished product, coupled with cost, bring the difficulties. Construction is the hard part and takes the most time and energy.
It’s like those DIY home rehab shows. They cram an entire remodel into an hour and emphasize the design and finishing touches leading to the final product. It’s the dirty work that gets a smaller chunk of the program. The rewiring, cutting, and rebuilding flies by in a time lapse with peppy music. But those parts are the most important. That gutting and rebuilding of a foundation make the finishing touches stronger. If you cut corners during the construction, the structure isn’t as solid.
The reality is the dirty work sucks. It’s hard and it takes a lot longer. Fingers get smashed under hammers as foundations are rebuilt. Sweat and tears accompany the back-breaking process of addressing unforeseen problems along the way. Sometimes the preferred (usually decorative) materials aren’t available, but it works out because something else was better suited in the first place.
I relate to this remodel/construction concept in a big way.
I’m in the middle of a self-remodel after a total gut job that was my life as I knew it.
I desperately want the hard stuff to fast forward until the remodel is done. But that’s not how it works, and I’ve figured that out the hard way a time or two.
Life’s messy and very human outtakes are part of the necessary dirty work that can’t be time lapsed and largely ignored like a home rehab show if I want to become a better version of myself.
I am dissatisfied with my rate of progress as a woman. I’m tired of healing and growth taking so long. I’m tired of struggling with the same ol’ “stuff” over and over again. I don’t want to waste any more time becoming the woman I am supposed to be and one I’m proud to be.
I think, however, I still fail to acknowledge and appreciate the “phases” of life.
In my impatience, I get down. I forget that we’re all growing and learning, and that takes a lot of stinking time. In reality, it takes a lifetime. Just because I’m in a phase that feels more like a construction remodel/total overhaul doesn’t mean I am a waste of womanly space. The tough work is still being done, and the dirty work is often the most tedious (yet necessary) for the final product.
Time. It goes on whether I’m ready or not. Moments pass, and I’ll never get them back. I don’t like wasting time. I know the past is in the past, and I have chosen to learn from it and move on. But there are days when I feel like I wasted my younger years trying to be everything for everybody while not truly knowing who I wanted to be myself. I neglected so much in my quest for my skewed view of perfection.
During this rebuild, I’ve figured out that anger has by far been my biggest “construction” delay. I didn’t recognize my anger for what it was: grief. I wish I allowed myself to grieve earlier instead of just trying to angrily tough it out.
This phase of my personal construction has tested my patience immensely. Obviously. I don’t give myself permission to be human most days. I expect perfection (a polished finished product) because, deep down, I’m afraid of failing again. I’m afraid of being disappointed in the before and after versions of me, that the “after” will be too similar to the first… that I haven’t come as far as I hoped. I just don’t want to screw up again.
Fear is a crippling and time sucking menace.
I spend too much of my day winding through worst-case scenarios in my head when a good one is under construction right in front of me if I take the time to see the progress.
There’s so much good to be found in rebuilding. I don’t want to overanalyze the good while sarcastically and pessimistically waiting for my life to fall apart again. Thankfully, time is healing and proving to be a great teacher. In reality, the person I used to be and the person I am now are very different. That’s a really good thing.
This week, I’m choosing to appreciate the process and the progress.
I’m in the middle of a remodel (clearly).
That’s what time it is. Now back to work.
Till next week’s badly edited blog,
Mel