The Flat-Packed Life and DIY crafts

I’ve heard it said, once, that building a life is a lot like building a fine piece of furniture.

I can’t remember who said it, but I would really love to smack that person.

I can only think they must have been talking about building a life without children, or the limitations that come with illness of any sort, or financial hardship. They certainly weren’t talking about raising multiple children with special needs, on a very restricted income, while trying desperately to cobble together something of a career. That effort is like constructing the Taj Mahal out of popsicle sticks and white glue, or at least that’s what it often feels like.

Now, I’m not totally inept when it comes to building things, whether it is a piece of furniture, a child, or a life. Prior to having Jill, I researched everything “baby” like a madwoman- I took in every bit of advice I could, whether it was useful to me or not, and tucked it away in my mental filing cabinet. I learned how to do things- things like canning my own baby food, and how to get disgusting messes out of clothing. I hoarded baby gear like a… well, like a hoarder.

I came into this whole parenting thing, feeling pretty confident about showing off all my new-found awe-inspiring knowledge and devastatingly incredible supermom skills.

I was all of that, and humble too!

I was going to build that piece of fine furniture.

I was going to show it who was boss.

When the baby came along, though, all that confidence got up and left the building. As the years have gone by, it’s become increasingly obvious that my life is not going to be at all like a fine piece of furniture, hand-crafted by yours truly.

Really, it’s more like a piece of flat-packed furniture from Ikea, built with a lot of determination and swearing.

More to the point, it is like a piece of flat-packed furniture from Ikea that came with a poorly written set of instructions, an inadequate supply of screws, and dinky little tools that seriously sucked at doing what they were supposed to do.

If I have learned nothing else in my life to this point, I have learned how to make something good out of what you have got.

So, here I am, in the middle of the bits and pieces. Here I am, the instructions thrown away, cursing and swearing a blue streak, and building until I have put together a bookshelf or something that looks more or less like the one on the package. There at my feet, are the leftover screws (from the inadequate supply) that should have been up there on the project with their buddies but are somehow lying on the floor among the leftover packaging.

Instructions be damned- I’m winging it.

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