Why is it that when things aren’t perfect, we get annoyed. I know, because I can become this person very quickly and have to try and fight myself from getting annoyed. I have to really remember that it’s ok to have dents and scratches in my life.
When I packed up the Christmas tree ornaments a few years ago, I set my large ornament box onto the dining room table so I could reach it more easily. As I finished, I pushed the box down the length of the table to make room to wrap up the star (which is terribly old and torn and really should have been tossed out eight Christmases ago). When I lifted the box to make my way to the basement with it, there in the middle of the table was a scratch 20 inches long glaring right at me. I was furious and didn’t have anyone but myself to blame. The box had a huge copper staple sticking out of the corner and was the culprit of the table’s now ugly scar. My “perfect” table was now imperfect, or so I thought at the time.
Why do we get so angry about these things? It doesn’t make sense to get upset over a table, does it? Of course not, but our minds tell us that when these things happen, somehow the “perfect” image we have of ourselves is now not so perfect. Oh my goodness, what will someone say if they see my scratched table? Silly worries. I have yet to have one person comment on the table.
These things happen and are what make life interesting. I’d much rather have dinner at my friend’s house on a scratched table and hear a great story about how it got scratched than eat at a house with a perfect table any day. The scratch is part of my life and reminds me of that moment each time I see it. Looking at it, I think of all the ornaments that were on the tree. The puzzle wreath my oldest son made in kindergarten with his little picture in the middle, the handprint on pink paper that our youngest son painted with his fingers and tied with a green ribbon and the blue glass ornament we got in Bermuda and how the color was exactly the color of the ocean that day. That scratch is my life and the memories in it. I like my scratched table now. It’s perfect.
