Just Go For It

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Things have been pretty busy around these parts. It's the day before school starts and it feels like 10 critical and important events have all been running simultaneously. I'm not sure I've ever felt pulled in so many serious directions at one time. Little by little things are getting resolved and taken care of but I feel like what is on my family's plate right now is enough for 10 families to share. Have you ever felt this way? I'd love to hear how you walked through that.

So I did something quite bold last week. It's silly really but it felt very symbolic and I think it opened up a door for me that is going to push me to show more boldness in the future. I took a pair of scissors to a blouse I bought.

Last Christmas I bought a blouse that I thought I liked and looked good on me. I think I have worn it one time since then because for some reason the designer decided to put a little ruffle all the way around the round neckline. It always bugged me and I think it was the thing about that shirt that kept me from wearing it. I would put the shirt in the Thrift Store bag, then would take it out and reconsider. I did this a few times. Finally I looked at the way the blouse was constructed and realized I could just take a pair of scissors to the ruffle and hack it off. If it did a good job of it, there would be no raw edges and it would look so much better.

So I did it. And it felt so good. Sometimes I have this feeling that if I do something like that I'm going to end up totally wrecking the blouse (or whatever it is that I want to make a change to) so I hesitate. But it's okay to take something that someone else conceived and make it work for me. What would've been lost if I had wrecked the blouse anyway? I wasn't wearing it. It was of no value to me the way it was. I wore it the next day and it was great - and I got compliments on my great "new" blouse. The neckline looked so much better and it looked like a top that I would wear. Goal achieved!

So now I'm excited to wear this blouse again. But this all has some larger meaning. I feel like I did one little bold thing that was a step I needed to be more bold in my life in other ways. I need to be more bold about taking what isn't working for me and making it work for me. Sometimes it's so easy to just continue to be dissatisfied with something that isn't working for us and never attempt to fix it. My blouse was a good reminder for me that whether it's a relationship, a piece of furniture, a home, a car, my clothing or my hair, it's okay to make a bold change. In fact, bold change is usually the step that propels us forward to the things we really want. Let's see where this blouse will take me now.