The Water Started to Organize Itself

What’s on my mind?

Very few things in my life have been going to plan lately.

And strangely, I am mostly okay with it.

That feels new for me.

My shop is still a work in progress, which is probably the kindest way to describe it. There are a dozen projects in various stages of completion. Some are half-built. Some are almost ready. Some were started with excitement and then quietly set aside when another idea pulled my attention somewhere else.

In a lot of areas of my life, that would bother me.

In my shop, it feels different.

My shop is becoming a safe space for the version of me I do not always give freedom to. The version that is curious, scattered, intense, distracted, excited, impatient, and fully invested in whatever problem is sitting in front of me.

It can look chaotic.

But it is also real work for me.

For most of my life, I would not have described that as freedom.

I would have described it as evidence.

Evidence that I was scattered. Evidence that I lacked discipline. Evidence that I could not finish what I started.

Evidence that the old voice in my head was right.

“You can’t do anything right.”

That phrase was repeated to me by me more times than I can count. Every unfinished task. Every mistake. Every spill. Every missed detail. Every moment where reality did not match the picture I had in my head.

It took me years to recognize that my internal voice was not the same thing as me. It was just a voice. A loud one. A familiar one. A convincing one. But not always a truthful one.

I would love to say I changed it completely.

The truth is, I am still a work in progress.

That voice still shows up. The difference now is that I notice it. Sometimes I even laugh at it.

Yep. You’re right. I can’t do anything right. And somehow, here I am, still learning, still building, still trying, still getting better.

That part matters.

Because the same part of me that can leave a dozen projects unfinished is also the part of me that keeps asking better questions. It is the part of me that lies awake thinking about how something works and how it could be improved. It is the part of me that wants to understand the system, not just copy the recipe.

This weekend, that system was an air lift vortex extraction tank.

That sounds fancier than it is, but the basic idea is to move water, air, and biology in a way that helps create a better extraction process. Other people have built versions of this before. I am not inventing new technology. I am learning something new to me.

I built my first small-scale version this weekend.

Before I turned it on for the first time, I went into the house and got the kids.

I wanted them to see it.

This was not just flipping on a pump to me. This was the first test of an idea I had been carrying around in my head. I had imagined how it would work. I had thought through the plumbing, the airflow, the water movement, and the shape of the tank.

I had pictured a dramatic water tornado forming in the middle.

So we all stood there and watched.

At first, nothing much happened.

It bubbled. It made noise. Water moved around, but not in the clean, dramatic way I had imagined. For almost a minute, it mostly looked like a noisy bucket of confusion.

We were not very patient.

Then, slowly, the first signs of a vortex appeared.

The water started to organize itself.

Not into the crazy water tornado I had hoped for, but into a gentle spinning motion. It was quieter than the version in my imagination. Less dramatic. Less impressive to anyone who had not spent way too much time thinking about it.

But it worked.

I was incredibly excited.

Then, almost immediately, I was a little disappointed.

It worked, but it was not perfect. It worked, but I wanted more. It worked, but I could already see what needed to be improved.

The kids congratulated me. I could tell they were proud of me in the way kids are proud of you when they know something matters to you. Then, just as quickly, they were over it and went back inside.

Which made me laugh.

Because apparently not everyone wants to stand around and emotionally process vortexing water.

But I also noticed something in that moment. Their excitement did not need to match mine for the moment to matter. They came outside. They watched. They celebrated me for a few seconds. Then they moved on.

That was enough.

Not every project needs to be fully understood by everyone else. Not every small win needs a standing ovation. Sometimes the work is allowed to matter because it matters to me.

And sometimes the first visible sign of progress is not dramatic at all.

Sometimes it is just a gentle spin after a minute of bubbling noise.

The water started to organize itself.

That line has stayed with me.

Because I think that is what my shop feels like to me.

From the outside, it probably looks scattered. Maybe even chaotic. There are projects everywhere. Things half-built. Tools left out. Ideas that started strong and then paused while I moved on to the next thing that grabbed my attention.

But I know something about myself that I did not always understand.

Sometimes my progress does not look like progress while it is happening.

It is very common for me to start a dozen projects, have them linger for what feels like an eternity, and then somehow watch them all come together within a few hours of each other. The missing part shows up. The thing I was waiting on finally makes sense. The solution to one project solves the problem in another. The mental clutter starts to line up.

Then, all at once, the water organizes itself.

That day is incredibly satisfying.

The days before that can be taxing.

Those are the days when I walk around looking at unfinished projects and wonder what in the world I am doing. Those are the days when the old version of me would have turned every unfinished thing into proof that something was wrong with me.

You can’t do anything right.

Now, it is different.

I still notice the unfinished things. I still feel the discomfort. I still want the project done, cleaned up, labeled, organized, and sitting there as proof that I did what I said I was going to do.

But I do not beat myself up in the same way while I wait for the pieces to land.

That is new.

That is learned.

That is growth.

I used to think the goal was to eliminate this part of myself. To become more linear. More focused. More disciplined. More normal, whatever that means.

Now I think the better goal is to understand myself well enough to build around it.

That does not mean I allow chaos everywhere. It does not mean I run my agency this way. It does not mean every space in my life gets to be covered in half-finished ideas.

I have learned tools for that. Timers. Lists. Systems. Repeating “one thing at a time” inside my head until I believe it enough to finish the thing in front of me.

But in my shop, I am allowing a little more room.

Room to experiment.

Room to make a mess.

Room to have an idea before I know exactly what it is.

Room to let the water bubble for a while before it starts to spin.

I have used the phrase “safe space” in my office for hard conversations. The point was never to avoid discomfort. The point was to create enough structure that people could stay in the discomfort long enough for something useful to happen.

I think my shop is becoming a different version of that for me.

It is a place where I can have hard conversations with myself without immediately turning every unfinished thing into a personal failure. It is a place where I can look at the mess and not automatically hear, “you can’t do anything right.”

It is still uncomfortable.

The unfinished projects still bother me. The waiting still feels taxing. The gap between what I imagined and what actually exists can still be frustrating.

But the space is safer now because I am safer with myself inside of it.

That might be the real change.

Not that I suddenly became organized in the way I always thought I was supposed to be.

Not that I stopped starting too many things at once.

Not that I no longer feel disappointment when the water spins gently instead of turning into the dramatic tornado I had pictured.

The change is that I can stay with the work longer without using it as evidence against myself.

I can let things bubble for a while.

I can wait for the first sign of movement.

I can trust that sometimes, eventually, the water starts to organize itself.

That is true in the shop.

That is true in the worm farm.

That is true in soil.

And unfortunately, or maybe thankfully, that is true in me.

Living systems are not finished. They are always responding. Always adjusting. Always becoming something slightly different based on the conditions around them.

Soil does not become healthy because someone demands perfection from it. It improves when the environment supports life. More oxygen. More biology. Better food. Better structure. Less disturbance. More balance.

Maybe people are not that different.

Maybe I do not need to become a finished version of myself before I am allowed to keep building.

Maybe I need the right environment.

A safe space. A little grace. Some structure. A timer when I need one. A shop where unfinished does not automatically mean failed. A family that lets me be excited about strange projects. A business that gives me a reason to keep learning.

And a willingness to keep trying.

A stronger vortex may come from the next version.

Or the one after that.

For now, I am grateful the first one worked at all.

I am grateful I noticed it.

And I am grateful that, slowly, the water started to organize itself.