The Night Before

Ditching the Rubric

I am coming to understand that I am a perfectionist in some areas.  Not all, I mean I live with lots of clutter, albeit organized clutter.  I can 100% go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink.  I vacuum the bedroom when my shedding hair forms clumps I can see.  But in other ways, I am coming to realize I am a perfectionist.

I am in grad school (for my second go around).  I got a 4.0 on my Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership back in 2011.  I got a 100% in my first class of this Early Childhood Coaching Certificate.    I love getting an “A.”  I live my life by that amazing rubric the teacher gives for each assignment.  In classes, if I meet every requirement in that document, I am sure to get an “A.”

I was listening to a podcast, Coffee and Crumbs, late last week on my walk (which, has become my nightly link to sanity.  I put on my headphones, I lace up my sneakers, I start my podcast or audio book and I LEAVE MY FAMILY BEHIND!  I try to spend at least 45 minutes each night taking care of my body and feeding my soul through this newly established ritual).  But, I digress…as I so often do…

I was listening to Crumbs and Coffee and their guest, Sarah R Bagley, who was talking about learning to be OK with being a B+ mom, her struggles with perfectionism and rubrics, and suddenly I realized… THAT. IS. ME!!!  I love school because the expectations are so clear and success has everything to do with effort.  I can control those outcomes.

But life doesn’t have a rubric, and neither does motherhood.  Raising Big made me feel like motherhood did have a rubric and I was ACING it! 

Then I had Little.  Where Big is easy and achieved all those milestones ahead of schedule and LIVED to make me happy, Little did things her own way from birth.  She was supposed to be a well-planned repeat C-section.  We had childcare arranged with my parents, who would then bring Big to meet Little the day she was born.  Little took matters into her own, tiny hands.  She came 30 days early, on a Saturday night (when my preacher dad and my mom couldn’t come watch Big).  At 10 days old she suffered weight loss that ended with a 7-day stay in the pediatric unit 2 ½ hours away from home.  I went with Little via ambulance and daddy stayed at home with 2-year-old Big.

Little approaches life with spunk and sass and her own style and methods.  I swear, her opinion is that if she isn’t living up to your expectations, you might need to change those expectations.  Little takes the rubric of life, dissects it, and keeps the parts SHE wants to keep.  My Little could care less about YOUR standards of success.  She writes her own.

I could really learn something from my spunky little pixie of a gal.  She is a slight, wispy force of nature.  She is confident.  She lives her life to the most extreme fullness she can.  Sometimes that means assignments don’t get turned in on time (or at all).  Sometimes that means that I have to tell her 5 times to wash off her milk mustache before we leave for school.  Sometimes (ok many times) it means she gets in trouble for talking in class.  And just maybe, she is right.  My standards need changed because a milk mustache is OK and so is talking in class every now and then.

But I could learn from Little to let go of my high standards and enjoy my life a bit.  I could soak up the moment and learn to be OK with B+.  I could realize that my worth, as a person and a mother and a student and a wife, is not tied up in my performance. My worth is already settled.

Isaiah 43:1&2 tells me this:

But now, this is what the Lord says—he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

Who needs the rubric?  I am HIS and HE is with me.  He is here…now… in my scary unknown.  I think Little knows that!  Daily I am trying to learn this from Little.  In this fire and the flood waters and in the land of no diagnosis for Big, I am His and He knows my name.  And for that, no rubric is needed.