Celebrating Imperfections Over Burgers & Fries
Blogging, Facebook, Instagram or any way of virtually publishing your life can easily lead to editing things into a quasi-perfect state, thus perpetuating the lie that some people can do it all flawlessly. After living in LA for a while now, the reality is, most any thing that looks perfect is usually just smoke and mirrors.
Throughout the past four years of sharing our story, we've tried to share most everything: the good, the bad, and the ugly, but I'm sure certain aspects of our life could come off differently--more "perfect"--than they truly are. In this vein of pulling back the curtain a bit, here's a recent anecdote...
One of our dearest friends, Francois, celebrated a birthday recently, right in the middle of an extremely intense season of studying for his final level of the CFA test. Needless to say, the whole family needed a break, so I planned with his wife Mia, who is 7 months pregnant, chasing an active toddler, and running her own successful, international business, by the way, to bring him a yummy birthday dinner. I was inspired to bake a multi-layered chocolate coconut cake (his favorite)--for the first time since my stroke.
First imperfection...I over-baked it, and it was super dry, then Jay had to ice it for me because I was absolutely butchering it with my attempt at one-handed icing. A well-cropped photo can hide so many imperfections, though it can't hide dry taste! Oh well, at least it looked kind of festive.
Second imperfection...I had planned to pick up a really yummy dinner from a great spot, I was so excited about it, but halfway there, we called and found out that it was closed on that night! We were already running late, as usual, and Francois had a very short time frame before he had to return to studying, so we literally swung by the nearest and quickest food spot...In 'N Out for burgers, fries, and shakes. Ahhh! What a special birthday meal--NOT!
Maybe some of you can't see why that was a big deal, but just imagine really wanting to celebrate something in a certain way for extremely deserving and dear people, having built it up in your own head as well as those you are celebrating, then sheepishly coming to the table with fast food! I was so bummed, particularly as Mia (a fabulous artist, designer, and all around goddess of creativity) had set a beautiful table, now adorned with greasy french fries and plastic to-go cups, but as dear friends do, they both effusively praised the amazing dinner, cake, and company. Maybe in a certain way, it worked out quite well since our favorite South Africans are huge fans of Southern California, and nothing quite says So-Cal like an In-N-Out dinner. Since I'm not perfect, I won't pretend I planned it that way all along...
As a mom, I want to communicate to my son how we like to do things as "the Wolf family", but most importantly, I want to communicate to him that no matter what the result might be of his best laid plans, it's the heart behind those plans that really matters. Oh, and having great friends who love you, imperfections and all, is pretty important too.