Practice makes...

I know the old saying goes... Practice makes perfect...  This is a saying I try to avoid like the plague in my house.  We say.. Practice makes better.  As a parent of a child that has Aspergers life for him can and will never be perfect.  Part of having Aspergers is that in his mind he sees things one way, but can't always translate that to paper.  This was a source of much frustration.  Everyone would tell him that practice makes perfect.  The idea of being perfect to him is black and white.  You either ARE perfect or you're not.  So that means you are either good or you're not.  Kids with Aspergers tend to have perfectionist tendencies.  You might never know it because they live their lives in a constant state of flux.  They are constantly doing an internal battle.  Telling them to be perfect will set them in to a tailspin.  Asperger kids and adults lack the knack to be organized.  I often wondered why my sons desk at school was a giant mess of papers, he could never find anything and was constantly getting in trouble from teachers for this.  His therapist one day said, you see how his desk is, just a heap of papers and information thrown about?  Yes I replied, thinking where is she going with this, this is part of the problem, he can't keep a clean desk.  She gently said, picture that mess, but in your brain.  Picture everything you have ever learned in your life, not organized in any fashion.  Just a heap of information piled all around, floating around.  "Normal" people can organize thoughts, they can compartmentalize what is the relevant information they need from what is useless.  Asperger kids can't do this.  They can learn to trick themselves in to it, but it's not natural for them.  It can be why they obsess over one certain thing.  My son had a love of all things Godzilla, he knew every single Godzilla character, who made the  toys, what movies there were, he collected all the movies, a ton of toys, and countless facts.  Obsessing over one thing, they have control over that thing.  To them ALL the information about a favorite subject of theirs is useful.  There is no need to sort and organize and file it away for a different time.  ALL the information is useful.

I was thinking about this in terms of my home too.  I don't have a perfect home.  I never will.  My furniture is old and falling apart, the walls still have crayon drawing remnants on them.  Sticker art graces the walls where my kids thought we needed a pop of color.  The rugs are screaming to be replaced as they are all stained with 11 years of living.  Half of my windows don't have curtains, the blinds have been ripped by the cats.  My room is strewn with clothes, both clean and dirty.  There is too much dust on the entertainment center, the windows need a good cleaning.  There are too many toys floating around everywhere.  I could never win any awards for my decorating style.

With all this though, I know my kids are happy and healthy.  They aren't the ones that are complaining about toys strewn about, no curtains on the windows.  None of this bothers them.  They don't need to live in the perfect house.  They are happy to be in a house that is filled with love.  The one that when you enter it, you immediately know kids live there.  I guess we have cornered the "lived in" look.

Somedays I wish I lived in a McMansion.  I wish I had the means to buy new furniture, fix the back door that is in desperate need of being replaced.  Buy curtains for every room of the house, paint the walls, get a new carpet.  I am coming to terms with the fact that I am a single mom to 3 kids, that I am living on one income and that I guess I would much rather live where I live the life we have, enjoy the small things we can than have a new couch or new window treatments.

I admit I need to get better at the house upkeep.  I need to not feel so overwhelmed when I walk through the door.  I need to learn to purge some of the toys and the mess.  I need to prioritize what is most important in the upkeep.  Is it the new back door, new carpets, paint the walls, new furniture?  If I sit and think about it I would say the door needs to be replaced first before I can get new carpet, because this defeats the purpose, and maybe before new carpet/flooring, the room could be painted.  Then comes the new furniture.

I tell the kids all the time that I want to live in a grown up house.  I don't want the toys invading all my space all the time.

Someday we will get there.  For now we need to take it one day at a time..  and I need to always remember that practice makes better.. not perfect.  No one should have to live up to the thought that things need to be perfect.  To me, perfect is unattainable,  perfect is something that no one can ever be.  because the minute you get to where you think things are perfect, there is something that throws a wrench into that plan.  There is no perfect life, there is no perfect house, there is no perfect child, there is no perfect relationship (altho don't tell my guy that....).

And what is perfect anyway?  I see people that act like they have the perfect life.  They portray that everything is perfect to people looking in from the outside.  The wrapping is perfect, but at the end of the day, what lurks inside this perfect package is broken.  It's a big old mess.  I often wonder why people do this?  Why portray that things are perfect?  Is it done so that these people can feel superior to you? They get pride in making others feel inferior?  Are they secretly jealous of your life.  Of the love they can see.  The love that comes from stickered walls, dirty faced kids, handprints on the windows, Popsicle wrappers strewn about.  I lived the life where people thought I had the perfect relationship.  The husband that adored me, the freedom to go out when I wanted to, the respect of a partner.  What was never shown were the cracks that were on the inside.  The cracks that became valleys, that became too big to overcome.  When the marriage ended, it was a shock, because no one saw the cracks.  They saw what I wanted them to see.  They say the vase that Brady kids had glued back together.  If they had stayed around a bit longer they would have noticed, that once the water was put into the vase, the cracks were evident. My advice is to let go of the image of perfect.  Let people see the real story.  The world would be a much better place if we all stopped pretending we were something we aren't..  If we stopped trying to be perfect, and aimed to be better.

I have enough internal struggle trying to be better than I am today, I can't put that much stress on me or my kids to be perfect.

I know this post is kind of all over the place (that's right people.. its not.. wait for it.. PERFECT...) .  it's a lot like me though..  sometimes makes sense.. sometimes, not so much.