Christalynn Hamer, 130 TESS

The best days are the imperfect ones. The ones where you’ve had enough egg on your face to make a couple servings of kai giao; the ones where sitting in a dark room, coloring, and binge watching Blue Bloods is the epitome of joy; the ones where relationship building feels like you’re a bowlegged giraffe on a tightrope (my favorite analogy for this experience so far). The best days are the imperfect ones because around the corner is the most random happenstance you would’ve never wished for but so desperately desired and needed.

One afternoon I found myself having a simply imperfect day, when I heard a knock at my back door. This would be normal if you didn’t have to go through my front gate to get there. Initially, fear, immense confusion, and annoyance pitted in the back of my throat. Acting as advisors, my curiosity quickly reminded me of the “say yes” motto while my exhaustion urged me not to neglect my rest and mind renewal. However, remembering the podcast I’ve recently started listening to called Shutup Brain, I decided to do exactly that. I got up, opened the door, and to my surprise, my landlord, her daughter, and two grandsons stopped by to transform my weed quarry of a backyard into a garden straight from Southern Living. As Pee Master’s grandson, First, danced around on my concrete pavement with his broom guitar in hand calling me Kuhn Kru Fish with not a care in the world, I was tickled and reminded how accessible joy is regardless of how imperfect circumstances may be; it’s our job to tell our brains and sometimes our feelings to shut up and open the door.

How ironic is it that this bouncing bean of a boy’s name is pronounced First and my literature for the day was about putting first things first? I’m not one to buy into coincidences, so I acknowledged the bullhorn message from Heaven to embrace the art of prioritizing, painting my moments with colors of the present, neglecting even the next nanosecond to come. I’ve decided all my days, imperfect or not, will look like prioritizing my lesson planning, coloring, singing, playing with children, crying, praying, laughing, sleeping, meditating, jawbonin’ with family, eating, and anything else that falls into the mixing bowl that makes up this life. I don’t have it all figured out but I have learned to give myself a break, to allow myself to make mistakes and not have it all together, and to forgive myself and move on. I’m realizing how an abundance of grace for myself and others tangled up with a little prioritization will always bring forth something picturesque whether the moments are painful, spectacular, or something in between. Thank you First for reminding me of the big things that I make small. Cheers to supremely imperfect days!