For those of you that know me, you know that I do best with a to do list and and a timeline. I actually crave them. I also crave perfection and am my own worse enemy. So dealing with certain things in my grief process are absolutely no different. It’s the only way I can take some control in a situation, in which it had all been taken from me.

After Eddie died, I told myself that on January 1st I would change my Facebook picture to one of the boys and I. I figured I would start 2021 with that change and a step in moving forward. I know this may not seem like much, but for me this was huge.

The Facebook picture symbolized the boys and I, moving forward with our life…without him present. It had to be perfect. For the last few days the decision to make the change had been very hard. I knew that it was on my list to do and I knew that I had to do it…for me. I’m very competitive, even if only against myself.

As I was contemplating this picture, my ride or die, told me to “just post it and if you take a better one, change it”. She is the one who gives it to me straight, but knows exactly what I need in that moment…always.

I wanted the perfect to be picture. However, I realized that striving for perfection is impossible and my goal needs to change…to striving for excellence. The hard truth, is that perfection is unobtainable and will drive us crazy trying to reach it. With excellence, we accept mistakes and learn from them. The picture I chose wasn’t perfect, but it was great… even excellent.