Meditations on Perfection

The attainment of perfection has been on my mind a lot, lately. Actually, it feels like it’s been hovering around buzzing like a bee in the back of my brain my entire life. I have struggled mightily my entire life to become perfect, clean and pristine in several realms. First and most importantly, you have to have flawless body- shoulders of a ballerina, waist of Scarlett O’Hara, hips and boobs of Sofia Vergara, defined, yet delicate jawline…the list goes on. The toes must be manicured, the eyebrows must be expertly shaped, the hair must have no split ends, the makeup must be applied. On top of this exquisite physique the house must be clean enough to drop a piece of fruit on the ground and be able to eat it without fear of contracting some tropical disease (this is Houston…it counts as tropical as far as I’m concerned). The dog must be walked every single day. Grades must be at the top of the class. It is mandatory to be both wise and ethical to a fault. It is mandatory there is always such an unmistakable sense of direction and purpose that you’ll never once wonder if this is really the path you should be walking on. The social calendar must be full, and each and every event attended with the effortless social graces of a southern belle.

The list goes on, and on, and on, and on. Forever. Infinitely. I think I assumed (and am working my way out of currently assuming) that if I manage to achieve perfection in all facets of life, I will be happy. Life will be good. How could it not be? It’s perfect- beautiful and blameless as a newborn. Everyone will love me, and I will love everyone with a gracious and humble heart. No one will have a single word to say against me. Ah, sublime.

The only issue is that this, of course, is an impossibility. I have exhausted myself to the point of probably five mental breakdowns in my life in the tireless pursuit of not having a single thing wrong with me.

To someone as anxiously OCD as I am (though I hide it well), flaws in the plan are not to be endured. And yet, there they are. Life has never once been perfect. Not a single time. And so I won’t allow myself to be happy in those moments that are truly good, because while good, there are still things wrong with the bigger picture. I am still not small. I still can’t cook. My boyfriend-who-isn’t-my-boyfriend refuses to commit himself to a title yet demands all of the accoutrement of it. I’m not sure if I want to be a nurse. I’m not sure if I should leave my boyfriend-who-isn’t or if I should stay because he has enriched my life in so many stupid, impossible, unforeseen, happy, giggly, delightful ways. I can’t focus on school work because the only thing I’ve ever cared about is the class that occurs outside of a classroom. The amount of things that I don’t know STAGGERINGLY outnumbers the amount of things that I know for sure. In fact, I don’t think there is a thing that I know for sure. Not a single thing. It feels like trying to run a marathon on the ever-tilting walkways of a fun house. To be so unsure of everything is so uncomfortable for me. It isn’t perfect. It’s a fucking mess. Every decision I make is one that I’m unsure of. I haven’t had a boyfriend-who-isn’t in so long; will he still want me when he knows that I can barely boil an egg, or when I gain ten pounds because I eat too much ice cream, or when I try to push him to be a boyfriend-that-actually-is? Will my friends still want to know me when they realize that my apartment is at times a disaster, or that I never return phone calls, or that I’m the most anxious, question-filled person alive?

…Am I doing it right?

To not have an answer to that question…that deafening silence of a response is just insufferable. And yet, that really isn’t something that will ever go away. No matter how old I get, I’ll never be certain. So what really needs to happen is that I need to learn how to relax into the discomfort of imperfection- crack open my tightly clenched, quivering little heart and just let the desire to control everything and everyone around me to achieve optimal circumstances GO. Just let it go. In twenty-three years it hasn’t taken me anywhere I dreamed I would be. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Nothing does, and nothing is. The stunning, improbable miracle of life is so incomprehensibly beautiful on its own that it really is enough to have lived at all. I’m grateful for the opportunity to watch this life, and to actively move around in it. Hopefully now I’ve begun the process of letting the idea of becoming comfortable with imperfection trickle into my skull layer by osseous layer. Cross your fingers that one day it’ll make it all the way down to my brain.