Easy There

I made a promise to myself when I started blogging that I would not let myself post song lyrics and call it a blog. I've done that before and been rebuffed for it. So. Point taken. No song lyrics. Check.

Well, except...

Except that music still impacts me -- so it was bound to turn up here sooner or later. I've been driving around the last few days listening relentlessly to this sugary-soda-pop Natasha Beddingfield song. And it's not so much the music (which features this full-on happy choir singing like they're at an "Up With People" revival)...or her voice (one part Pink, two parts Christina Agulera) or even the lyrics themselves in particular...but the idea behind it grabbed me. And that's what I can't get out of my head.

This song is about, I think, forgiving yourself....about living life large without fear or inhibition...about finding your voice...about breaking away from the notion that making mistakes is something shameful....about the fact that life effectively starts over not just every day, but every minute.

Obvious as it is, that was a powerful message for me. I've spent so much time and energy over the years making sure that every step was well thought out...that I knew as many answers as I could as much in advance as I could...trying desperately to prevent any little miscalculation...terrified that a mistake would mean failure and a crumbled house of cards.

Only, the more I consider it, the more I think much of that mental-energy may well have been unnecessary. Regardless of how much thinking I do, I make good decisions and bad decisions...I take calculated risks and impulsive risks... Sometimes an impuslive risk turns out fabulous (a 3-day party with people I'd never met before) and sometimes a calculated risk goes sour (the date I knew was doomed 30 seconds into it)...

And apparently, dammit, there's no early-warning system for predicting the outcome of either. *mutter*

So maybe I should get over it. Maybe I should embrace my mistakes (and my propensity to make them) as part of a life well-lived. Maybe I should stop letting fear of failure and rejection hold me back... Maybe I should go a little easier on myself for the past that I can't change...and learn to appreciate the tabula rasa of this moment...

Maybe my ending is unplanned, too... And maybe, for the first time, that seems really ok with me.

***

"Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten..."