On creating, making, & showing up.

I’ve always got a dozen or so projects going at once. Steve and I joke that I have Hobby-ADD because my brain leaps around from crochet to sewing to painting to graphic design. I write and draw and rearrange our furniture.

I’m good at a lot of things but not great at any one thing, and that’s okay. I like to explore and learn and stretch my brain. Unless it involves math, and then I don’t like it at all.

This month I’ve mostly been watercoloring. I have’t been consistently working on that skill for very long, so I’m still learning about shading and shadowing and mixing colors.

And honestly, one of the hardest things for me is finishing. Do you ever struggle with that? I’ll get partway through a piece and then nap time is over or its time to make dinner, and by the time I have free time again I just don’t want to get to work again.

Sometimes it’s because I’m bored. This little vegetable collection didn’t have the bright colors and patterns that really draw me in. I almost quit a bunch of times. But I finally decided to power through, because I can’t learn if I don’t finish.

My favorite project this month was this little swimsuit number. I started it ages ago, but I just finally finished it and put it up in my Etsy shop a few days ago. (If you want it, you can use coupon code BRIGHTLIGHT to get it for just $6.)

This one took a long time, too, and it wasn’t because I wasn’t enjoying it or because of all the little details. It was just that it felt like it would take too much. I’d look at it, think of all the things I’d have to get out and clean up just to start painting it, and it would sit there for another few days before I’d go through the same motions again.

In fact, this piece ended up being completed a row at a time.

I’d paint the yellows, and then have to put it away.

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A few days later I’d make it to the oranges and then the reds.

And after that it took me probably about a week–maybe more–to get to the purples.

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And the version you see on Etsy is different than the real version, because you know what? I messed up. I painted 16 swimsuits that I really liked, and 4 that I thought were just kind of ugly.

(The blue stripes and purple polka dots didn’t make the Etsy cut)

Messing up makes me want to stop, too. It’s demoralizing to give your all to something and come out with a flop of a finished product. Perfection is an impossible standard, but its one I subconsciously expect of myself all the time.

I have to consciously remind myself that perfection doesn’t matter. What matters is that you keep showing up.

Show up to create. Show up to mother. Show up to a girl’s night or to be a shoulder for a stressed-out friend. Show up to write, to study my scriptures, to exercise.

Sometimes showing up is half the battle for me. Other times it’s 90% of the battle. It’s way harder for me to tie on my sneakers and load the kids in the car than it is for me to work hard at the gym for an hour.

This week has been long, and while my husband has had to reliably show up at the hospital to work weird long hours, I’ve had to keep showing up emotionally for him, for the kids, for myself. But that’s all I’ve really had to do.

That’s nice, isn’t it? Being present is really the most important thing we can give to ourselves and the people we love.

It’s hard to show up. But it’s also an easy way to make progress and prove yourself.

Show up and do the work. (And the work might be drawing or writing, or it might be making dinner or washing applesauce out of the baby’s hair, or it might be simply loving really intentionally.)

Show up and do the work, and let the rest take care of itself.