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The Crooked Shelf
Look, I spent years building walls. Not literal ones, though I could lay brick if I had to. These were walls around me. Around my mistakes, my shame, everything I didn't want anyone to see. And those walls? They had to be perfect. Every brick aligned, every corner sharp. Couldn't let a crack show.
It’s ridiculous, right? A guy who spent his youth making bad choices, obsessed with perfection? But that’s how it was. If I was gonna rebuild, it had to be flawless. Otherwise, what was the point?
My wife, Maria – been with her since we were kids, thank God – she’s been on me about this for years. “Francisco,” she’ll say, “you’re stressing over the small stuff. Nobody cares if the spice rack isn’t perfectly centered.”
I cared.
Yesterday, I was putting up some shelves in the community center workshop. We're trying to get a wood-working program going for the kids. I measured, I leveled, I re-measured. And the last shelf… it was off. Just a hair. Maybe a quarter inch lower on one side.
Listen, I'm not proud of everything. Old Francisco would have ripped it down, started over. Hours wasted, frustration boiling. But I didn't.
I looked at it. It was functional. It held the tools. Nobody was gonna die because of a slightly crooked shelf.
And I left it.
It sounds stupid, I know. A small thing. But here's what I learned: letting go of that need for everything to be perfect… it’s freedom. It’s admitting that I’m human, that mistakes happen, and that doesn’t erase the good I’m trying to do.
You're not too far gone if you’re still trying, even if your shelves are a little wonky. It proved to me that progress isn’t about flawless execution, it’s about showing up, doing the work, and accepting that sometimes, good enough is good enough. It’s about letting a little imperfection in, letting a little light shine through the cracks.
— Francisco Meyer, walking a different path