More Leaping, Less Looking

Oprah would be so proud of me. I had an "aha" moment in the car this morning so profound that I pulled over and wrote it out in my notebook. I'm not sure it was generally profound, more like personally profound. You probably figured it out years ago. I don't think I can explain it properly because so much is contextual and historical, but the gist of it is that I'm going to create a big, messy preschool painting for God to hang on His fridge.

See? I knew it would be hard to explain.

Okay, I'll take a stab at explaining it.

I'm going to live a big, vibrant, messy, wrinkly, colorful life filled with risks and mistakes and lessons learned the hard way. It's even going to have little pieces of dried macaroni glued to it to represent my love of carbohydrates.

I think I have held myself back for too long in a conscious effort to avoid making mistakes. And while I've been relatively successful at avoiding many big mistakes, I have closed the door on too many things (experiences, opportunities, even people) because there was a risk of failure. Or it seemed scary. Or unnecessary. Or irresponsible. Or illogical. Fill in the blank.

For 32 years, I have equated mistakes with failure, which is the biggest mistake of all. And speaking of failure, what's so bad about failing every now and then? Every painting needs some dark tones, and besides that, black is slimming.

The irony, of course, is that I've made plenty of mistakes along the way. So, the only things I really avoided were opportunities to have my mind and experience expanded. And the absolute last thing I want out of life is a narrow mind. The very thought of it makes me claustrophobic.

So that's what happened to me in the car this morning. In a vortex of heated seats, indie music, and winding country roads, I figured out that this canvas of my life is waiting not for my carefully crafted portrait, but for my big, sloppy, masterpiece. With dried macaroni.