5 B.C.: Past Perfect

The permits are completed, one more step closer to the beginning. What a journey it’s been to here: 5 contractors, 3 engineers, 2 architects. And a plan check in a pear tree. Not that we didn’t play our own role in this endless adventure. We hemmed about the floor plan, hawed about the pool plan, and obsessed over every detail. No doubt we will continue to do so as planning gives way to construction.

Every iteration represents an improvement over the last, but at what cost to our time or sanity I can’t fathom. While we waited, the walls of the converted patio began falling in, the tile on the pool began chunking off, and the physical decay made it okay for other aspects of our house and life to fall in ruin.

I tell myself perfect is the enemy of good, because I’ve watched it happen. I just can’t make myself live it. Writing has been a similar pursuit. If it’s not perfect, it’s not ready. And years after I started writing in a serious manner, I am still at that crossroads. Always picking, paralyzed by perfection, while life marches on.

That’s what makes this blog so important to me. Of course it is trite to be a writer with a blog. Heck, I’m pretty sure my 2-year-old is blogging about something (likely candidates: elephants or trucks). But blogging forces me to just put it out there. UNperfect. But completely present.

In the end, we are doing an addition of a master closet and bath to our bedroom, an expansion of the living room, and a redo of the converted patio into a real room. To make room, we are cutting the pool down by a third, and since we’re already mucking around with it – adding a spa and shallowing the deep end. 500 square feet on a 1500 square foot house. Relief.

It’s the perfect plan – for right now. We may look at it tomorrow and only proclaim it good, but that will not deny that it is in fact Good.  Even God, upon surveying his creation, was content enough to simply declare it “Good.” Why do I keep asking for anything more?