The Best I Can Do.

This year I promise to do the best I can do.


Not the best my neighbor can do, with her perfect garden along the backyard edge of her house that never sports weeds or dusty fungus, and always looks like she’s vacuumed it.


Not the best my friend nearby can do, with the unbelievable amount of things she gets done during the day, while looking like she’s just stepped out of a salon/off the runway/away from body-sculpting exercise equipment, while brilliantly meshing two families, while creating gorgeous displays/crafts/food/center pieces/handouts, while remaining positive after a years-long string of stresses.


Not the best my pal in the next town can do, with the crazy-pants schedule she keeps, and the physical pain she is in, and the ridiculous volumes of people she serves, and some of the coocoo-for-cocoa-puffs people she has to deal with. While looking an awful lot like my nearby friend at the same time.


Not the best my sister-in-law can do, with the perfectly clean and organized house, and the perfectly clean and organized kids (and husband, who might not be so perfectly clean and organized without her), and helpfulness and friendliness and kindness and drop-everything-to-help-you-ness.


Not the best my friend-for-a-million-years can do, with her new-life-after-a-stroke-yet-somehow-she’s-kinder-and-sweeter-than-ever, and her awesome husband, and double-awesome kids, and fabulous parenting in which her kids know she loves them no matter what even when she smacks them in the kneecap for being goofy (she’s vertically challenged), and awesome service attitude, like she would totally plant your garden for you if you couldn’t get to it. And probably vacuum it if you asked nicely.


Not even the best my own husband and kids can do, who haven’t thrown me out yet because, frankly, they’re pretty patient and kind and long-suffering, not to mention really really weird. In a good way. (How else do you explain running jokes that involve hiccuping in the whistle-register, reciting “Oops! I Did It Again” as a dramatic reading, and doing a dance called “The Doi-de-Doi”?)


No. I can’t do the best they can do. But I can do the best I can do. Hopefully it will be good enough. It’s the best I can offer for 2011.  That and being grateful for all the people above, and everyone else in my life. So thanks! You’re the best.


Addendum: Not to wax religious–you can call it anciently historic if you like–but it’s the Widow’s Mite. Remember that parable? The poor woman throws two mites into the temple treasury and is spurned by the rich Pharisees for her poor offering? Except that since it was literally everything the woman could give, it was greater than the abundant offerings of those who could have given more? Doing all you can do is the best you can do. It’s good enough. And it frees you from comparing yourself to others and falling short.


Me and the Mites. We’re gonna be tight.