Letting Go and Having Fun
Permission to let go of perfectionism
In my personal Substack I follow Louise Tilbrook’s writing about knitting. Her recent essay, titled “A love letter to the ‘good enough’ Knitter,” is really about so much more than knitting. It is about the permission to be imperfect, to keep going anyway, and to recognize that most of the criticism we fear comes from within. The occasional external critic tends to reveal more about themselves than about our work.
I have been thinking about that idea this month. I do not consider myself a knitter, though I learned as a child and have picked it up again in small ways. During the Puget Sound Yarn Tour, each shop offered a free crochet and knitting pattern, and I collected them with the optimism of someone who might someday make use of them. I have also accumulated more patterns than I care to admit from Expression Fiber Arts. None of this makes me a knitter in any formal sense. It simply makes me someone who is willing to try.
That willingness has been on my mind for another reason. My daughter is graduating next month with an endorsement in languages. She is the first student to take ASL 5 with her teacher, and she has approached the language with a seriousness and fluency that I admire. In April, my husband and I enrolled with her in a community college ASL 1 class. It was meant to be a shared project. Then the VRP announcement arrived, and my motivation evaporated. My husband continued attending and practicing with her; I did not.
Today, however, I needed those “good enough” ASL skills. I cannot speak for a few days, and typing everything would have been the easier choice. Instead, I signed my way through the interaction haltingly, imperfectly, and with plenty of help from texting and text‑to‑speech while my husband drove. They showed me signs when I reached for a word I didn’t know. The communication was not elegant, but it worked. It was enough.
There was a moment, somewhere in the middle of that exchange, when I stopped evaluating my performance and simply enjoyed the process. Letting go of precision made space for connection. It also reminded me that progress often begins with the willingness to be visibly imperfect.
I suspect this is the theme of my next chapter: letting go and having fun. Not in the sense of abandoning standards, but in recognizing that “good enough” is often the doorway to growth. It is the space where learning becomes possible, where creativity becomes sustainable, and where the pressure to perform gives way to the freedom to participate.
Good enough is not a compromise. It is an invitation.
Alison + Marlowe