I’m rummaging through my “shit closet,” minding my own business, trying to find supplies to start, wait for it, yet another craft project. And there it is, haunting me from the back like a ghost with hot glue: my seventeenth half-finished project from two years ago. Just chilling. Judging me. Probably rolling its imaginary eyes.
Do I feel a little stab of guilt? Obviously. Does it stop me? Absolutely not. My brain is already saying this new project will be different, as if I’m not the same damn person who abandoned sixteen others.
We celebrate the spark at the beginning. We obsess over the shiny finish. But the middle, the chaotic and boring middle where we stall out and have to slam the reset button, that is where most of life actually happens. And that messy middle is exactly where grace shows up, because grace is the part that lets you pick the damn thing up again instead of shaming yourself for dropping it.
And honestly, this pattern shows up way outside my craft closet.
Take my eating disorder recovery.
One minute I was sure I was finally doing it right, and the next I was on the floor in front of the toilet again, convinced I had failed. I kept believing recovery had to be perfect or it did not count. What I couldn’t see was this: every single time I stood back up and tried again, that was the victory. Grace wasn’t in nailing it. It was in the restart.
That same lesson showed up again in parenting.
I used to think teaching my son chores would be simple. Folding laundry, clearing dishes, basic stuff. I would show him once or twice and expect it to click. And when it didn’t, I would get frustrated, thinking he just wasn’t trying. What I wasn’t seeing was that his brain needed more time and more steps to learn in his own way. His brain works differently because he is autistic. He wasn’t being defiant. He needed time.
The day I finally understood that hit hard. He didn’t need stricter expectations. He needed gentleness. He needed choices. He needed grace. So I slowed down and met him where he was, and everything got better.
And because the universe loves a theme, I get hit with this same lesson at work too.
Every week I swear I am going to sit down at my computer and actually get shit done. No phone. No scrolling. No distractions. Just focus. And every week I ruin it immediately. I open my laptop, think I will check my phone real quick, and suddenly I am in a TikTok hole watching a raccoon steal bread. Twenty minutes gone. Coffee cold. Brain toast.
Cue the inner critic: Seriously? You can’t even start working without screwing around? The shame, the heaviness, the “you always do this” soundtrack, it all kicks in.
But slipping into old habits is not failure. It is simply old habits. Cozy, annoying little bastards. And catching myself in the middle of them is exactly the moment I get to choose something different.
Which brings me to this:
Grace is not just the soft moment where you whisper, It’s okay. I messed up.
That is only half of it.
Grace is both the forgiveness and the fuel.
Forgiveness is the cleanup, the moment where you stop beating yourself to death for being human. It is the breath before the spiral.
Fuel is the spark you get from what went wrong. It is the moment you say, Alright, that stung, but I learned something. Let’s go again. Grace does not just soothe you. It moves you. It is the bridge between “I messed up” and “I am trying again.”
Think of it like a video game. You screw up. You fall in a pit. You get obliterated by something ridiculous. Then the screen pops up: Game Over or Continue.
Grace is the Continue button. It does not erase what happened. It just hands you the controller again.
And if you are wondering how to press restart in real life, here is something you can use today:
The 5-Minute Rule.
When you screw up, give yourself five minutes to lose your shit. Wallow, rage-clean, cry, swear into the void, whatever your flavor is. Set a timer. Let it happen.
When the timer goes off, that is your cue to press Continue. No more spiraling. No more dragging yourself through the mud. Just take one tiny, doable step forward. Grace is not passive. Grace is movement.
If five minutes is not it, try one gentle action that nudges you out of the shame loop. Drink water. Tidy one surface. Step outside. Send the email. One simple thing is enough to break the pattern.
Grace does not need you to fix your whole life.
Grace only needs you to fucking start again.
Starting over is not weakness. It is resilience in real time. It is the most courageous and continuous art form we will ever practice. Every restart is a reclaiming of your power, your hope, your humanity.
We are all in this messy middle together.
Starting over is tough work. What is the hardest thing you have had to hit reset on recently?
Tell me in the comments. We are all learning here.
My “shit closet.” 🙂