A Quiet Celebration Amidst The Chaos

It’s the small details, the contentious care, the quiet celebrations that matter. 

Key Takeaways:

• Quiet Celebrations Matter 

• Relish Small Details 

• Feeling Different is Okay

This week marks my one year anniversary of writing on Substack. This week's is post #51. I’m proud of the commitment I’ve been able to keep with myself to publish weekly. I love to write and I love the feeling of hitting the “publish” button. To have others comment and interact is a delightful bonus. To that end, I would like to sincerely thank and celebrate those who’ve subscribed to, recommended, commented on and “hearted” my posts. It feels good to be here.

This sweet little celebration is enshrouded in what feels like chaos in our country. The rhetoric, vitriol and double speak these last several months have left me feeling like a piece of burnt toast. With so many catastrophic things to lament, I feel like I have no right to toot my little toy horn for such a comparatively insignificant achievement.

It feels awkward.

Like when I broke my toe a few weeks ago. It was the little pinky toe on my right foot. I turned and left the room I was in quickly and the little guy got caught on the door jam. I looked down to see it sticking out sideways - 90 degrees from my foot.

I knew there wasn’t much that could be done for a broken toe, but I still went to urgent care because I wanted to see an x-ray of the break and make sure I did everything I could to help it heal perfectly. I love to hike and walk everyday and didn’t want to have lingering pain or other foot problems.

As I sat in the waiting room, knowing full well that my injury was on the very bottom of the list of what’s considered urgent, I felt a little ashamed and a little embarrassed. Too conscientious, too careful, too worried about doing the right things to help my toe heal - too sensitive.

I should just tough it out with my toe. I should go for bigger goals with my writing. I should somehow be different than I am. I’m starting to think that more people feel like they don’t quite fit in or are somehow different, than those who do feel like they truly belong. It makes me wonder if wanting to fit in opens up the “othering”, the making bad, of those different than us. It could be a symptom of the political rhetoric of hate and division we’ve been steeped in."I’m terrible” becomes a projection of “you’re terrible.” I don’t know. And, I’m exhausted by it. But I still want to celebrate.

It’s the small details, the contentious care, the quiet celebrations that matter. We don’t have to give up our commitment to or interest in quiet things because the rest of the world is so loud, chaotic and more badly messed up than my little toe.

So I’m going to keep writing in my tiny corner of this platform, and grow my tiny business and care deeply for my tiny toe and relish the tiny details of a butterfly’s wings, the disappearing tips of my cat’s whiskers, a faint smile on my friend’s face and the flicker of a candle in a quiet room.

Perhaps this is one way to counter the indigestible enormity of grief and strife and danger in this big world. To care for tiny things, notice small details and celebrate tiny accomplishments like one year of publishing weekly on Substack.

|“If you can’t do great things, do small things in a great way.” ~Napoleon Hill

What small details are you noticing? What tiny wins are you celebrating amidst the chaos?