Irony

I just returned from a friend's wedding and promptly set out to send out a card for another friend whose wedding I will not be able to attend in two weeks.

The wedding I was in was very beautiful, and to the uninformed eye, went off splendidly. Of course at any wedding there are things that go wrong. Something arrives late and stresses everyone out. Something is not decorated as specified. People do dumb things because they are people. But at this wedding as a bridesmaid, I was most satisfied that nobody passed out and fell over from locking their knees, nobody tripped walking down the aisle, and so on.

I saw how there is a lesson in life that in anything things are bound to not go exactly as planned. And we decide how we handle these things when they don't go as expected.

I was tested in this immediately.

I was writing in my friend's card. I was trying to write a quote from St. Teresa of Avila that goes something like this:

Let nothing disturb you

Let nothing frighten you

All things pass away

God never changes

Patience obtains all things

He who has God wants for nothing.

God alone is enough.

Well I am writing in this really pretty card and it is my last special multi-colored butterfly card. I am giving it to my friend because I am not going to her wedding and I think she deserves the best- the last of my favorite cards.

I am writing "Let nothing disturb you" and like an idiot I switch the 'u' and the 'r.' I then try to write over the letters and try to make the r look like a u, but it doesn't work. So then I am looking at this messy word that is right at the top and smacks of imperfection. On a nice wedding card no less. I am weighing the options of crossing it out because I deem the word unredeemable. I figure this is an even worse option than leaving the bumbled word there as it is. I look to see if I have any more butterfly cards, and I realize it is the last one. It would've sucked to have wasted another precious butterfly card, but at least I could try again for a clean version of the card. No, I decide I want to use the butterfly card. I was tempted to get frustrated and upset. And disappointed. Perfectionism was creeping up and threatened to ruin all the excitement I had about the card and the purpose for which I was sending it.

Then I thought about the irony of the very quote I screwed up. Let nothing disturb you...

So I regrouped and decided to take the quote at its word and readjusted my attitude. "I will make it work!" I declared to myself, as if Tim Gunn himself was standing there over my shoulder. And I ripped off the messed up part and just used the clean part. And it looks fine.

Take that perfectionism! You will not have victory over me today! Now let's just see if I can apply this to the big stuff that doesn't go well...