Good enough.

Letting go of perfect.

(👆#bts at the studio, bags exploding with stuff. aka me in the real life wild. good enough.)

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We had friends over for dinner this weekend.

It was a casual, impromptu thing. That grew from having one family over to 21 people in our house, between kids & adults!

These are close friends. The kind where you all agree that you don’t have to clean your house before having each other over. We’ve known most of them for nearly 4 years.

When we first moved here to the Hudson Valley from DC, it was peak Covid, summer 2020. Masks-outside-at-the-farmer’s-market-kind-of-time.

And we knew *NO ONE* here. We had one kid then, who was about to turn 3, and so we used him as our bait. Everywhere we went, I’d look for kids about his age and we tried to meet people that way.

So on a Saturday, not long after we moved here, I spotted a guy and his kid who looked about Lou’s age outside the bagel shop in town, and I shooed my husband Sam over there & said, “Don’t come back here without that guy’s number!”

It worked. Turns out the kid was exactly Lou’s age and this sweet family was our opening door into an immediate community.

Somehow, they let us elbow our way into their Covid bubble, and we found friends that felt immediately like family. We were very lucky.

So here I was this past weekend. And even though we don’t *have* to clean our houses before we have our people over, I was cleaning.

We recently moved into a new (old) house — finally buying one in our tiny village after almost 4 years of renting the dreamy 1790s farmhouse we found on Zillow in June 2020 that allowed us to make this leap to life in the Hudson Valley (that house was the softest place to land).

I work well on a deadline (anyone else?) .

And I thought this impromptu party happening in 8 hours was as a good a deadline as any to finish unpacking a bunch of boxes.

(The kind with kids’ art projects and random books and off-season clothes and who-even-knows. Spoiler alert :: I think I actually properly processed one of them. The rest just got kind of moved around and tidily stacked.)

I work well on a deadline AND also always *severely* underestimate how much time & resources things actually take.

This works well for my creative, entrepreneurial, cup-half-full spirit. But it can also really make my snippy with my husband as we scramble to pull off the party prep.

(And while we’re on it, why do husband / partners spend hours leaf blowing the back half of the backyard as their pre-party prep? Reminder to self: I’m annoying too ;)).

Anyways, I’m cursing under my breath. I’m literally sweeping things under the rug, and I find myself saying out loud — again, anyone else? — these words: “That’ll do.”

“THAT’LL DO!”

I always describe myself as a “recovering Type A+++ perfectionist.” And let’s just say I’m in *active* recovery.

And I know I’m not the only one.

I often share these lines from the writer and wise woman Anne Lamott with my clients because they hit very specifically ::

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life….”

Ooof. I’ll let that sit for a minute.

So, I’m doing my mad cleaning thing. I’m letting the pizza dough for 6 pizzas rise. I’m realizing we have exactly no wine in the house to host this party. (Not that a party needs wine, but usually our parties have wine.)

The pizza dough falls flat. The guac is made at the buzzer. The polenta thing is meh.

That’ll do.

That’ll do.

That’ll do.

The friends bring the wine. And no one arrives exactly “on time.” Amen for 20 minutes of grace (& good friends who get that).

I’m not advocating for “just fine” here. “Just fine.”

In fact, I want life to be STUNNING as often as possible.

Here’s the thing about stunning though.

You can’t force it. You CAN NOT.

If you try to — you’ll be clenched and snippy your whole life.

You have to LET it be stunning.

Send the friend who asks “how can I help” out into the garden with a pair of kitchen scissors and a mason jar to clip something beautiful for the table, an hour into the party.

And it’s STUNNING.

That’ll do.

I just know if I aim for perfect, I’ll get obsessed with it. And I’ll miss my own damn party. I’ll miss the whole thing. Perfectionism, “the enemy of the people” keeps us away from our lives.

Instead, I chose to just be with my people.

Now the next morning, we’ve got 3 extra kids who slept over. I’ve got to get out the door to teach a morning of classes at the studio. I remember I also have to wrap this birthday present for a 7-year-old friend’s birthday party later that day.

I have no wrapping paper. Of course.

I grab random tissue paper and tape it over this long, awkward, big box (some kind of nerf g*n🙄 my kid picked out for this friend).

It looks HORRIBLE.

I laugh.

“GOOD ENOUGH,” I say to no one, out loud.

“That’ll do. Good enough. That’ll do.”

The refrain evolves.

To me, it sounds like a freedom song.

Later that morning, I’m teaching my “Mama Class” (a prenatal & postpartum yoga & meditation series that I host once a season).

We start our session talking, as we always do.

I usually offer an orienting question as a way to open up the sharing and shape our time together.

Today it was this — What are doing that’s just “GOOD ENOUGH?”

Moments later, there’s tears, there’s exhales, a lot of laughter, and the room is filled with warmth & support.

The jig is up. No one is perfect. We SEE each other. The kids are alright.

I fully believe this :: We can’t do it all.

And I don’t want to! Not everything is mine to do.

I’m in a moment in my life where a LOT of things will just be “good enough.”

And that’s great.

Cause when I can be ok with “that’ll do” and “good enough,” I can be more present with my people. From the friends, to the mamas, to my kids, to myself.

Of course, I’ll probably forget this again soon and be gripped by the enemy, perfectionism. (She’s a sticky story to unravel.)

I can only hope that I remember — mostly — as often as I forget. Again and again and again. It’s just like that.

It’s how I’m approaching this Substack too — to be honest. I wanted to launch a 10-part series today — in my second post ever — titled “10 Life Lessons Learned in the 10 Year Since Leaving Big Law.” LOL.

Here we are instead. This post. Good enough. That’ll do.

And NOW, I want to hear from you.

Say it out loud (well, in the comments) — what are you doing that’s “good enough?” Leave a comment. Share with a friend. Let’s see each other.

Our good enough is stunning. Amen.

Thank you SO much for simply BEING here.

Let’s Sit Together,
Cath

p.s. — here’s the full Anne Lamott quote:

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.”

p.s.s. Here’s the audio version of this post followed by a five-minute guided meditation called “Good enough.” Consider becoming a paid subscriber to get access to the audio + medi every week!