I Had It All Oh So WRONG! | Life Love and Hiccups: I Had It All Oh So WRONG!
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Sunday 28 December 2014

I Had It All Oh So WRONG!

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I didn't mean to disappear from the blog over Christmas. I had all the best intentions to keep writing but then... I just didn't, because I was too busy enjoying time with the family and without even thinking all those intentions went out the window... just like that.

In fact I was the slackest blogger ever because I pretty much didn't take a single photo of Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, of anything.

But I am OK with that.

I learnt that it is OK to switch off and to just be in the moment instead of behind a camera.

It is more than OK to be a part of the memories rather than a spectator attempting to catch them on film.

All year I have harped on about wanting to be more present, more IN the now, and it took this Christmas to make me realise that I have been doing it all wrong.

I have been so busy working at being a perfectionist this past year, in my work, in my home, in life in general. It is something I had promised myself I wouldn't do anymore, and yet despite my promise there I was doing exactly what I said I wouldn't do.

The collateral damage of my actions was HUGE. The collateral was that I was missing out on so much time that you can never get back.

When I quit my big fancy corporate job 18 months ago, it was because I was miserable and I was to some extent blaming the job for causing my absence from my family life.

You can't really blame a job for that. Well you can to a point I guess, at least some jobs you can. But my job was a choice and truthfully... the majority of the blame for missing out on anything lay with myself and my need to have everything perfect.

Every year, I set about to make Christmas perfect, more perfect than the last one and the one before that.

What an idiot I am.

Every Christmas IS perfect, regardless of what I manage to orchestrate or not, just as long as we are all together.

Of course it's okay to put some effort in to making things beautiful. I enjoy doing that and Lord knows we need some beautiful to balance out the ugliness that sometimes rears its head in this world... but there is beautiful and then there is beautiful and truly beautiful is more than a pretty table.

It is more than matching name cards, styled up food and the perfect table setting.

Beautiful is putting on the cheesiest music you can find and creating that food and  the mess with a special niece.

Beautiful is bringing your precious Dad home from hospital in time to celebrate Christmas with you.

Beautiful is having your most favourite people in the world sitting beside you at the table, laughing and enjoying each other's company.

Beautiful is sitting amid a huge mess in your living room with your feet up, your husband rocking on in the kitchen and your kids talking a million miles an hour at you.... and more importantly hearing every single word they say.

THAT is beautiful.

I may have got it wrong this past year, but I sure as hell am going to make some changes with this new year coming. There is a reason that simple is best and that perfection is overrated.

Perfection lies within the imperfections... the little flaws, the bubble in an otherwise perfect surface.... the hiccups in life.

So please excuse my absence from the blog over Christmas. I was busy living my life and realising it is time to get back to basics, to what really matters.... life, love AND the hiccups.

I hope you had the Merriest of Christmases with your loved ones.

I would so love it if you shared with me your most fave memory of this Christmas just gone and the one thing you want to change in your life moving into the New Year?


photo of my tribe taken by my brother at Mum and Dad's house Christmas Day