Learning to be silly again

Who'd have thought it would be so hard?

I started my online Silliness course today and these are the results of my first attempt. Not only did I find it really hard to do the exercise - both the upside down bird drawing and colouring, and the word generation - I have also struggled to get the photo to view the right way up! But I guess that actually just adds to the silliness...

I'm not sure I'm very good at being silly - at least not this way. Being such a perfectionist, I struggle and strain to make sure I do the best in everything I do. A friend once asked if there was anything I wasn't good at, having just seen me push myself through hoops to do well at a particular task at work. Well, I guess, this is it!! The harder I tried to get the upside down bird shape right, the worse it got. The more I tried to be delicate and 'artistic' in my colouring, the more clumsy it looked.

But then I stopped and thought. Maybe I was trying too hard. I certainly wasn't having fun, I was stressing out about getting it 'wrong'. And you know what, that really made me laugh! What a twit I can be at times - this is about being silly not being spectacular. There is no right or wrong. There's just fun and, to quote an inspirational friend, finding joy.

So then I just decided to relax and enjoy myself. And as I was colouring in the sky, I found myself thinking about how much I love that light you get just at sunset, when the sky is such a strange mix of colours from fiery red to duck egg blue. I've never been able to capture it in a photograph, and I sure as hell haven't caught it in my colouring on my worksheet today - but in my head and in my heart I have - and that's what counts!

Roll on tomorrow's challenge (well, today's but it will be tomorrow before I get to it) - and definitely roll on the silliness. It's been a long hard day at work, but I've still found something to smile at. Thanks Carla, $25 very well spent already.