The Perfect Solution is Nothing

I waste sooo much time trying to figure out what “the perfect” thing is sometimes — like we need a new silverware drawer tray or new curtains and I dive down this deep rabbit hole of wasted time and eventually wasted money trying to “solve” the “problem”.

My world has been “rocked” a few times recently (super exaggeration) with a few random things where it turned out that NOTHING was the best option when I was looking for something. Or I found something completely random to serve as the solution.

The “problem” was “solved” by not buying anything, by not doing anything.

For example, our bamboo flatware caddy thing broke. I was debating what to replace it with. In the mean time I had to clean out the drawer and put something in there. I had two shallow plastic bins that fit the space. I put those in as a “temporary” solution. And it turns out it was the perfect solution.

I don’t waste time sorting the silverware. And it fits all our odds and end pieces readily. The second bin is for measuring cups and odds and ends. I was astounded that the simple, ready solution was precisely what I was seeking without knowing I was seeking it.

I realized that I needed to sit with this insight for a bit — as it seems deeply important.

Then it happened again.

I was seeking out the best curtains to put up around our first floor. Ryan wanted them all to match. But curtains are expensive. I thought maybe in our front living room maybe we could get shades or something as curtains seem to fill the space too much and are hard to open/close because of furniture in the way.

Then Ryan had to fix where the old hardware came out the wall — patch over it because we have several extra holes from where we’ve (aka the kids) have dislodged the hardware from the wall and we had to re-drill. And so all the curtains and hardware were taken down.

As is his ways, Ryan took a while to complete the project. At first I was like “Good. I have time to solve this and figure out what we’re going to put up”. And a few months on he still isn’t done (because we need to re-paint over the spots and we’re lazy…). And in this time I discovered that I really like the room without anything on the windows at all.

That seems crazy to me – since people can see right into our house, especially at night. But frankly it was liberating to be like “I like this this way. And the solution was nothing? Wild! I need to sit with this more, God is definitely trying to tell me something here.”

But I haven’t really sat with it… other than remembering that I have to take note and take notice.

This blog post is my best effort so far to sit with this insight. …It’s a start, but I know I haven’t fully figured it all out yet.

So all of these words are to say that I guess sometimes the perfect solution turns out to be nothing. And nothing is perfect.