Letting Go of Perfect

Every day I find myself looking around at my house, my reflection, my LIFE, and mentally making to-do lists of all the things I “need” to take care of. There are piles of precariously leaning games, 647,982 pieces of precious art (aka scribbles that my kids didn’t want to throw away so they “gift” it to me), junk drawers overflowing with...well, junk, the couch cover (that hides our hideous but comfortable hand-me-down couch from the 90’s) that is never tucked in right, my kids’ closet that’s riddled with clothes that don’t fit, the laundry that is somehow either all dirty or all clean and waiting to be put away, there are random hair clips and “special” rocks all over the counter. The list goes on, and believe me, it does, because I am the one who makes the lists. They never end. I find myself careening between horror at what a clean-freak stranger would think if they walked in right now, and pretending that everything will be fine if I can just get to the weekend when I will certainly have time to whip everything into immaculate, Martha Stewart-worthy shape. But the reality is, I never have time to check off all the to-dos and must-take-care-ofs. I often wonder what life would feel like if I could suddenly become a hardcore minimalist (and drag my family with me, kicking and screaming). Then I remember that that too would take time; I would have to either go through all the shit laying around, or I would have to light it on fire and walk away like an action-movie badass. I think that HOAs frown on that sort of thing, though.

And this, my friends, brought me to this morning. I was looking at said piles of games and thinking to myself that I absolutely HAD to go through and organize them right this very day or I would never forgive myself. After all, Thanksgiving is right around the corner and there will be guests...I mean, the guests will be the same people who are here all the time, and who love us, messes and all, but still. I thought, “This is normal to me because I look at it everyday, but if I look at it from an outside perspective, it definitely looks trashy.” Then I began to look around at everything; dishes on the counter: trashy, raggedy dining chairs: trashy, oddball thrift store art: trashy. Hold up! I would NEVER let anyone else call me, my home, my family -any of it- trashy. I would straight bitch slap them. So why the hell am I talking to myself like this?! And where did I pick up the notion that just because I am a grown woman with a family that I need to have it all together? Or who’s to say that this isn’t together? I imagine you are beginning to see the merry-go-round that is my inner dialogue.

So I took a step back, closed my eyes, breathed deeply and thought, “Let go of perfect.” My mother always told me that “perfect” doesn’t exist, anyway. I think that I can say now that I disagree. Opening my eyes after that deep breath, I saw those piles from a different perspective. I saw the joy and laughter that comes from pulling those games off the shelf and spending priceless time with my girls as they grow. I saw the band-aids that get shoved in the back of the drawer covering boo-boos, and the hugs that go along with them. I saw the flips and tickles that muss up the couch cover. I saw the limbs that used to fit into those pants and sweaters that keep growing by the day. I saw the easy flow of conversation and the tough talks that our table has seen. The mess that I thought I was drowning in is actually the nest that holds my family.

The to-do lists that I have always held dear almost never have items like, “hug the girls for one whole minute each,” or, “kiss your husband in the kitchen even when dinner is burning.” As infuriating as it feels in the moment, my kids have the right idea when they prioritize just two more minutes in the tub over making sure their toys are properly sorted. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a well organized toy bin, but does dumping them all in make the toys any less fun to play with when they come out again? Do raggedy ass dining chairs make our meals any less delicious or the time spent sitting in them any less precious?

So I asked myself, what do people see when they come into our home? Do they see the should-dos or have they seen all along what I am seeing only now? The answer came to me like that unexpected shock you used to get from those plastic school chairs when you would finally touch metal: it doesn’t matter. It does not matter what other people see when they come into our home. It doesn’t matter if there’s an old mystery stain on the carpet or if my plants are dusty. It doesn’t matter if there is glitter glue dried on the table or if there is a bag of river rocks in the living room that I have been meaning to paint for the last five months (oddly specific, I know, truth is stranger than fiction). What matters is how the humans in this house feel when they are here. And, I realize, I am one of those humans that matter. If I can see that the people we invite into our home can participate in the love and joy, mess or no, then I can too. Because life is messy, unless you are Kim Kardashian or Marie Kondo, and life is good and it’s too damn short for a to-do list that never ends. So let go of perfect, because that’s surely how you find it.