Moving into our new home meant a lot of trips to IKEA and the inevitable need to assemble furniture. (Shout out to the Task Rabbits who tackled the bigger, more intimidating installations at our house.) Assembling a Billy bookcase for my guest room office seemed like something I could handle just fine. I had my hammer, my screwdriver, an episode of classic Will & Grace on my TV, and the wordless illustrated instruction manual in my hand. I was ready for focused productive time, alone in my guest room office for a solid 30 minutes. 

And then my youngest walked in. 

“I wanna help,” he said. Knowing this was not the statement he had intended to make when he had walked in the room. What he really wanted was to see if he could finagle early screen time access. He was bored, he would have protested. Nothing to do, he would have whined. But instead, his eyes showed interest (not sure if it was the opportunity to hammer something or to puzzle something together. Maybe both.) 

I didn’t want his help. I didn’t want his company. I wanted my time. I wanted it done my way (i.e. “right”). And I wanted to have my 90s sitcom too inappropriate for a 7 year old to watch playing on the TV to entertain my efforts. My Inner Adolescent was pouty and disappointed. And then my sensible Nurturer stood up and said, “OK.”

So we looked at the instructions together and I translated Ikea-ease for him. We splayed the pieces on the floor to match precisely to the drawings, we passed the screwdriver and hammer back and forth, working quite well as a team, more patience on both our parts then I expected. This was going great. In fact, it was approaching fun!

And then we stood the bookshelf up. 

Well… A number of nails that were intended to go through the middle stabilizing shelf rail had missed their mark. Noticeably on G’s side of the bookcase. I caught one at the time of hammering, but the other two were peeking at us from the top of the shelf rather than securing the shelf in place. And the top of the bookcase was askew, no doubt from a screw not completely secured (and me failing to double check his work.) Of course, we had hammered 20 nails securing the back panel to the structure and I was not pleased with the idea of having to pull them out to realign and hammer in again. My son watched me, looking for a cue on how he should react to my energy and silence. My inner Perfectionist wanted to snark. Luckily, my inner Nurturer stepped in again, and declared, “It’s perfectly imperfect.”

I thought of the Japanese art of Kintsugi – putting broken pottery back together using gold to bind the pieces. And I decided that the flaws and imperfections were just fine; in fact, the small cracks from the mis-hammered nails and the lopsided top shelf were perfectly “seven-year-old G”. 

It was his Kintsugi gold. 

Perfectly imperfect. 

A solid B+ result with genuine effort. 

My inner Nurturer gave him (and me) permission to be satisfied.

And now every time I pull a book from the top shelf, or shift a picture frame and expose the dimpled paneling, I delight that G made a lasting mark here. I see the gold. We had time together, cooperating together, getting along; he felt helpful and accomplished. The bookcase stands, and it’s secure, and books cover the major flaws for the most part. Not likely anyone will notice the flaws but me, and really, all I see is gold.