I like leaves. They dress bare branches in their leafy finery, provide shade in the summer and a splash of colour as autumn arrives; It's like they decide to change the tree's outfit to match the season - How convenient.
Before long though they're drifting downwards to the ground and carried on the wind creating a multi-coloured blanket of gold, brown, bronze and yellow. It's a nice time of year where fickle autumnal weather is counterbalanced by the riot of colour drifting downward and covering the earth. It's magical and somewhat romantic I think. The circle of life taking another turn.
Autumn is one of my favourite times of the year; It's just so beautiful and with the weather cooling off from the often baking-hot summer it's a lovely time to hike, spend laying on the ground watching clouds scud by above and hearing the little creatures prepare for the winter.
So beautiful, but bloody frustrating too!
I don't mean all leaves; Just the ones that blow onto my lawn, collect in the corners of my yard and around my house. Even then some of those leaves are ok, the ones that eventually blow over to my neighbours house and away from my own...But those ones that hang around and assault my OCD nature? Bastards!
I mention my OCDness above and whilst I'm not truly afflicted or diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder per se, I like things a certain way sometimes. You know, all black coat hangers in my wardrobe, hot food not touching my cold food on dinner plates, and an equidistant gap to the white lines of a car park when I park up my cars. That sort of thing. That's not OCD right? 🤣
Probably kinda maybe, definitely could be OCD.
Anyway, one of my OCD things is leaves on my lawn. To be more specific, leaves on my lawn at the time of me mowing it. I can deal with it days later when a few leaves blow over the lawn but when I'm done mowing it I like to stand back and see a patch of freshly cut green lawny-stuff, perfect edges, straight cut lines and leaf-free! I don't think it's too much to ask right? A brief moment of perfect-lawn-appreciation.
I mowed my lawn today - It was raining for a few days from mid-week and with some sunshine today I thought it was a good opportunity to satisfy my need for lawn-porn. Edged, mowed and leaves all picked up I cleaned and put the lawn mower away then headed back out to the lawn and...Leaves on the lawn; There must have been twenty!
You see, those bastard-leaves I mentioned above seemed to have got together with the breeze in a leaf-on-lawn conspiracy designed to infuriate me on what would otherwise be a smashing lawn-porn kind of day!
I picked up the leaves rescuing my amazingly sexy fresh-cut lawn from the indignity visited upon it by said leaves, dropped them in the green-waste bin out the back and...More leaves blew on there. I rescued the lawn from those leaves and...More leaves arrived. It's a conspiracy I tell you!
I see what's going on here.
I sat down to think things through and whilst I'd like to say I collected those leaves again I actually did not. I decided that autumn [now winter actually] was going to win the day and resigned myself to the fact that my lawn wasn't going to satisfy my OCD nature today.
I used to have the need to seek perfection in the things I did; I'd drive myself hard in its pursuit and beat myself up over not attaining it. In my past life there were implications to poor performance and I wasn't willing to risk it so chased perfection relentlessly - That spilled over to most things around me.
It was nonsensical, extremely limiting and pretty exhausting to be quite frank. The good thing is that once I realised how limiting and damaging it was, that it held me back, I dealt with it with some counselling sessions and implementation of a few concepts that pretty quickly turned things around. It was long overdue.
I came to the understanding that perfection didn't exist in me, or other's, and chasing it was a fool's errand. I replaced it with the drive towards my best effort, achieving my personal best rather than perfection, and it opened me up to so many opportunities, great happiness and some really amazing results. It was enlightening.
That was years ago and I'm happy to say I'm able to accept imperfection in myself, others and even my lawn as evidenced today.
With respect of people I say that their imperfections make them perfectly them. Unique. It often makes them more believable, personable and interesting also. With other things...Well, nothing will ever be perfect and so, like my lawn, I'm happy to accept perfect enough, be thankful for it and happy with my efforts to attain it, or have those unique things and people in my life an around me.
My life is full of perfect-enough moments: Hikes in the rain, sleep-ins that don't go long enough, culinary endeavours that don't quite work out, looking in the mirror and seeing a completely average and flawed knucklehead looking back, but one who is alive. It's ok though, It's the dichotomy of human life and I'll accept it as life; Just like I accepted my imperfect leaf-strewn lawn today and went hiking instead of worrying about those bastard leaves.
I hope y'all are having a great weekend, or have one planned that'll deliver some perfect enough moments and that you embrace them with every fibre of your being - They are, after all, the very moments of your life and the precious seconds and minutes that will come to an end all too quickly. It's worth making them count in my humble opinion.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised so be humble and kind
Discord: galenkp#9209
Image of non-bastard leaves taken a few weeks ago.
