In June, we moved into the house we have been building since late last year. Our dear friend, Mike, built it for us and it was (mostly) a fun experience. For years, I composed Pinterest boards of every room of the home we would “someday” build and what features we may include. Recently, I found a photo I had saved from a couple of years ago of my dream master bathroom. It’s funny to see it because it pretty much looks like our bathroom now. I guess I knew what I wanted.

My vision of my perfect bathroom had a chandelier over the bathtub. I searched for months for the one that would be just right without breaking the bank. I finally found it (on sale!) and was thrilled when it arrived. It took me hours to assemble, intricately placing every single crystal in exact position, much to the protest of my poor fingertips.

Mike was kind enough to come over and install it for me. I was at work and my husband, Justin texted me a photo of my newly installed, dream chandelier that was the icing on the cake to my soaker tub in my beautiful bathroom. Finally, my vision was a reality.

My “perfect” chandelier

Did I mention that it was perfect? Well, it was, until it wasn’t. The gear on one of the three cables that held the heavy light in place started to slip and within hours, it was tilted. No. This wasn’t tilted in my dreams. My “Dream Bathroom!” Pinterest board had free-standing soaker tubs, and marble tile surrounds, but it did not have one single photo of a drooping chandelier.

I walked by this tilted chandelier for days and it drove me crazy. It wasn’t living up to my expectations. I mean, not even close. It just hung there, looking pathetic. This was supposed to be one of the last things that was completed in our house and it was NOT fine. I couldn’t send the light back without taking it apart. Did I mention that it took hours and hours to put together? My fingers had finally just healed from the assembly.  Mike said he would come back and look at it but I didn’t want to trouble him.

What was I going to do with this tilted chandelier? I couldn’t leave it like this. What if one of my friends saw it? It was supposed to be so beautiful. It was supposed to be perfect! But it was falling far short. My chandelier was failing.

So, I climbed up on a ladder and took a good hard look at it. I looked at the flaw that had revealed itself. What could I do about this? Yelling at it wasn’t going to help. Telling it how disappointed I was wouldn’t change anything. Looking at it in disgust would not make my chandelier straighten up. How could I fix my imperfection?

Do you ever feel like that? Because I do. I had all of these great expectations and nothing was turning out like I had envisioned. Maybe my chandelier just needed a helping hand instead of condemnation.

So, I found a single, silver hoop earring and took up the slack in the slipped cable, until the crystal chandelier became level and perfect-looking. From a distance, she may appear perfect. But, if you come over to my bathroom, and you look very closely, you will see that she needs a little help holding it all together. Much like we all do. And that’s OK, too.

Secretly Holding It All Together

Happy trails,