Burt expects me to deliver my best self. He knows it doesn’t always happen.
“I’m doing the best I can” is often dismissed as not good enough.
Sometimes, it’s met without challenge and accepted. Forgiven or forgotten.
The other day, when we established that no aide would be with us, Burt asked me if I would stay calm. “I’m a good teacher, I found out. I’ll teach you how to stay calm.”
And I guess apropos being able to keep cool but perhaps being overtaxed: “It’s amazing the hard work you did with the party. All that hard work doesn’t just go away.”
Later in the day, when I did indeed lose my composure to yell at him, he wound up apologizing for his long, incessant rant about how badly I had been treating him.
Truth be told, up until my little fit of rage, I had not been anything but patient. The rant against me was due to his anxiety over something else. I knew that.
I could have gone for 100%, but for a moment, I lost it.
My best mimics the rule in Japanese pottery; there is an imperfection, a dent that emphasizes its perfection. I did my best.
this is our life 