Roll With It, Kiddo

The last words my best friend from college ever said to me were: “You are exactly the person I hoped I would meet, at exactly the time I needed to meet you.”

I try to remember that on days when I am struggling – so much to do! So little time! So little SLEEP! – and feel like I’m not doing anything particularly well.  I remember my friend, and think: No, I’m okay.  I’m doing fine. I’m exactly who I’m supposed to be at exactly this moment.

So I’m not perfect.  Sometimes my hair is all funny and stick-y up-y and I’m a bit of a mess. Sometimes I wear sweatpants for a couple of days in a row and the dishes get a little piled up in the sink. I don’t always eat well – In fact, I’ve been living on microwaved food for about a week now, and you know what? It’s not a tragedy. I don’t like to work out and do so sporadically. I’m not always nice, and I’m not always considerate, and I’m not always completely appropriate.

But I try. I will, eventually, take care of the hair situation – USUALLY before I leave the house. I’ll get the dishes washed and will resume wearing actual clothes (again, usually before I leave the house). I’ll go back to salads and foods prepared by human hands pretty soon, I’m sure. I’ll get back on the exercise train or, at least, go outside for nice walks. I try to be kind most of the time; I make an effort to be, if not always considerate, at least polite, and I’m working on the appropriateness.

In other words, I’m winging it and hoping for the best. There are, of course, days where this REALLY works out. There are also days when it’s a major kerfluffle. I think, though, that most days land squarely in the middle, which is a nice place to be.

My friend, who had the philosophy of “Roll with it, kiddo” would definitely approve, if he was here. He’s not – he passed away two years ago – but I think that he would be happy that I’m figuring it out.

He was, it turned out, exactly the person I needed to meet, at exactly the time I needed to know him.

So I keep rolling with it. And it turns out that that is not only good enough, but it might actually be perfect.