It’s 3:38 A.M. and I am sitting on the couch watching the moon.

It’s the fifth generation of the same couch I spent my first pregnancy on..... watching the trees leaf out as I wondered if this pregnancy would go full term. The third generation of the couch I had the flu on during those days of watching the room spin in a fever stupor. The first generation of the couch I had Covid on last year.

That couch. The one that is my safe haven when my world crashes on occasion.

I try to be positive and upbeat through everything...these blogs tend to be uplifting. I try to be perfect in fact...as perfect as I can be. A good person. A loveable person.

And yet, I sometimes hate the Pollyanna I look like I am ...the person who is cheerful in spite of it all. You know, that person who tries too hard to be perfect.....sometimes they are actually pretty easy to hate.

But tonight.....I had to give up being a Pollyanna as I cried myself to sleep on the couch with the blanket pulled over my head. There is nothing wrong and everything is wrong. I was actually almost perfect today....nothing bad happened. Except that I buckled under the pressure to be soooo good. Too good.

I’ll spare you the details, but I know you know the feeling...

Somedays, in spite of your intentions, you can’t be perfect enough.....and on those nights you give it over.....knowing that with the break of dawn and the new day, you will be willing to try again. At least, that’s how I see it. Try hard..and then move on... But now...it’s 3:38 am and I am awake with my face taunt from dried-on tears.

And it doesn’t feel yet like this dawn will bring a new and fresh look at the day, so I lay here and watch the moon.

The almost full moon who had its glory a few nights ago and now is on the waning side of it all. A sort of “Has-been”......

Tonight it shines brightly though in spite of it all. Still in its almost perfect state. Not quite glorious but close enough. I should learn from it tonight.

The night is partly cloudy with fast moving clouds darting across the sky, pushed by a fierce wind. They race along, and at times they obliterate the moon, engulfing it in their lust to be all consuming of the clear sky. And yet...and yet, the moon perches up there steadily and resolutely in its almost perfect, but not quite perfect glory. The clouds come and the clouds go. They consume it in part, they consume it in whole. They come in waves, reforming over and over in new attacks as the moon simply steadily shines.

And yet, even when they swallow it up so greedily, the moon‘s light never totally disappears. It dulls, it diffuses, but make no doubt about it, you know exactly where it stands in the sky by the light it still radiates. You can see that area of the sky that’s lighter than all the rest. You KNOW why it’s lighter than the rest...it’s because the moon simply doesn’t let things snuff out it’s light. Furthermore, the moon doesn’t create its own light.... it radiates light from another place...and shares it to all who see it. That’s kind of fascinating in its own right. So I decide that these thoughts are something to hold onto this middle of the night. This now 4 A.M. revelation that the moon has lessons to teach us. I have decided that in our less than perfect state, we are still better than the less than perfect full moon I am watching this morning, . We create our own light. AND we have the opportunity to radiate and reflect our light elsewhere. Within us, and towards others. We have a choice. So, in a matter of hours, I will get up off the couch and start the day, “My” wise moon will soon set for the day but tonight it will rise again, and no matter what the weather, it will be “out there”...shining its reflected light. Whether I see it or not, depends on many things. Hopefully I will be sleeping in my bed as it stands guard through the coming nights and reminders of it’s lessons will be unneeded. But for now, from my couch, my Safe Haven place, my renewed resolve to face this next less than perfect day will carry me forward. In the end, the only behaviors I can control are my own. And so I will choose, like my less than perfect moon to straighten my less than perfect shoulders and shine as brightly and as steadily as my surroundings will let me.

And that will be okay.