Not Quite 'Good Enough'

The perfect twenty-four hours.

Man, that haunts me.

It's haunted me since I was a child and heard some no-name host muttering about the perfect day on TV, asking some kind of question to a contestant that was drowned in the static while it snowed outside. The woman on the screen laughed. She exposed her pretty teeth in their neat little lines and mentioned something about a beach, a walk, and a midnight swim completely naked. Everyone laughed along with her.

Except me.

See, I'd already started overthinking it.

That fear must've been invasive, because it planted itself in my mind and pushed its root system through my neural pathways until it overtook every aspect of what I might've become and injected perfectionism into my daily routine. And now... Well, now I've been thinking about the perfect day for years.

You can shove so many things into a day. Candy and junk food, playing outside, working out, fucking. Fucking off. There's so much room for error. More than that, there is room to have a really nasty, no-good, bad day.

But the idea of twenty-four perfect hours, of 1-4-4-0 minutes, all perfect...

Isn't that a dream itself? It sure seems tantalizing.

When I think about it, the list rolls out in my head like a scroll and suddenly, I've stepped into the shoes of that woman on TV. It would be nice to wake up without having to do any chores or tasks. Not having to scroll through emails would be even better and having no time to doomscroll would be best. It'd be nice to have lots of little treats, plus a few big meals, plus something to chomp on when the food is done. And it sure as hell would be nice to lay out on the cool sands of Lake Michigan, watching the sun trade places with the moon, naked or otherwise.

But that's not perfect.

Those are all just nice. Maybe even really, really nice.

A perfect day is a lot more than that. It's perfect. The pinnacle!

That demands something different, doesn't it? It has to. Otherwise, it's just shades of better than average. That doesn't settle well with a perfectionist like me. No, not at all.

The perfect day starts at 7:30 in the morning. At home. Because 7:30 is late enough to have slept in and slept well without accruing the inherent shame of waking up too late that being raised Catholic brings. Shame that didn't die with my beliefs. Maybe it does on this perfect day. Maybe I don't care when I wake up at all. Maybe I even act a little lazy and linger between sleep and waking.

When I roll out of bed, sheets still clean and crisp, it'd be to both feet hitting the ground and no pain. No stiffness. Nothing that needs to be worked out or fixed.

See, I did the right things the night before so that I could have this perfect day. I foam rolled, stretched, and even counted my breaths instead of Reels.

Next up, grabbing coffee and remembering to drink it while it's still hot. Today, I'm staying home.

And unlike every other day, there's a predictability to it. I know this place and its rhythms. I could count the gravel trucks on the perfect morning of the perfect day. I could see them timed seven minutes and ten seconds apart, locked in like the school busses.

There'd be no diesel seeping through the open screens because in the perfect day, everyone else would have their shit together so I wouldn't have to hold the edges of the world together for them. That means no broken trucks. It also means no grumbling distractions or horns outside. That'd free up some real time. Time that I could spend sitting on the weathered wood steps, watching the trees move in a breeze.

I'd close my eyes and bathe in the eastern light. Early and fresh, it wouldn't quite be hot yet. If I was lucky, it might even be cool out. Like it is in fall. But I'm not picky. There's beauty in every weather system. Fuck, I'd sit out in the rain if I knew that every minute of my day would be perfect.

It would all be part of the experience, yeah?

Yeah.

A walk through the yard.

That's what would come next.

I'd peruse my little natives; the silver sage, the golden tips of the goldenrods, the Kankakee mallow drowning in pollinators, the burnweed. Even if it was winter, I'd look at their hollow stalks and the way the frost gathered on the fine hairs of their dead memories.

And the birds! My little outdoor friends would come sit nearby and wonder with me. What exactly is so special about what we're looking at? Ah, who knows! That's part of the perfect day. Looking without knowing.

Knowing ruins everything.

Upstairs I'd go. Fill that cup right back up to the brim and this time I wouldn't get any jitters from it.

It'd still be hot.

I'd sit down to write a poem and I wouldn't be interrupted mid-sentence by the buzzing on my wrist and the screaming on my phone to take medication. Just wouldn't need to. I wouldn't even need to fucking look at the clock unless I really wanted to. Maybe I'd catch it at ten-ten. The most aesthetically pleasing time. Or maybe I'd just watch the clock and count its seconds. Who would be more accurate?

Me.

Then what?

I'd eat a salad with tomatoes that are a little too unripe for everyone else and avocados that are perfectly soft and unbruised. The dressing would be just enough to flavor, not enough to drench. The water in my glass, cold enough to gather condensation but not so much that it hurts my stomach. A perfectly mundane meal.

And a big bowl of ice cream.

No headache.

Brew some decaf. Write my representatives with a grin knowing that with my voice, something was going to change. Sing in tune. Waste the day with reading and games and maybe a second lap around my yard. A visit to the forest I own and a dream of what might come next.

Healthy ash trees.

And when the sun gives an inkling that it might thinking about heading home, I'll let the chocolate melt on my tongue and dine on a brownie I'd keep hidden from most people because being high is a choice and it's one I'd make on a perfect day.

I wonder though what the weather would be like.

Maybe cool with the touch of autumn.

Freezing and static-like from a long winter.

Humid with the press of a long, hot summer of sweating corn.

Crisp with the smell of melting snow.

It would be nice though, wouldn't it? Perfectly loud like I like my weather to be. Perfectly feral with a demanding gust, a tornado or two, or wind so cold that I can feel the way my soul wants to heat the universe.

What would it even matter when I would write where I could do no wrong?

Every word and rhythm and beat; nothing out of step.

How long would I spend writing? As long as physically possible. Until the high wore off. Until the second high wore off. It would all come up roses...and I'd spend my time sniffing the perfumed breeze, relishing the sweet impossibility of making it through the afternoon without a hitch.

Because writing during a perfect day would be like sliding into a pool of ambrosia. Inch by inch, the ecstasy would grow until the act of putting words to paper was orgasmic itself because if there is no problem, if this is the perfect day, then I have finally learned how to command the universes no one else knows.

For an afternoon, an evening, and a night, I would be the perfect god to my little worlds.

I'd break it up with rounds in the kitchen.

Baking bread and making pies.

Feasting on them.

I'd cook up a dinner with heavy cream and too much flavor then enjoy it with good company. Perfect company. The company that I picked to enjoy forever with. And everything would be beautifully mundane. To outside eyes the workings of the day would be easily guessed and completely unspectacular.

It would be unwatchable as a movie.

So boring it would make someone want to rip out their teeth to feel something.

Not for me. No, this movie I would watch.

Inside the tedium blooms exquisiteness. Therein lies the opportunity for stillness and inside of that, like a nesting doll, opportunity. I could carve away at my time with idleness sans guilt. Why not squat down by the beetle and watch its path? Why not stare, slack-jawed, at the subtle tremors of tree leaves and bird feathers? Why not listen to the clock tick and watch the shadows slide across the home?

A perfect day is a little bit wasted. A few opportunities should be left unseized. For tomorrow, of course.

Of course.

It would end.

The perfect day would slow down gradually and wither like a rose is supposed to, dying first before being dead at my feet.

The pajamas would slide on. The bed would offer its standard greeting. And I would lay awake just long enough to suck the marrow out of a day that could have and should have bored me but didn't.

I think that I would drift off mid countdown to midnight, too busy wondering how many more great acts of things-finally-going-my-way the day had left to realize that sleep was approaching. That it was here.

And that would be alright.

Because one thousand four hundred forty times in a row, everything went according to plan. Mundane, maybe. Perfect? Absolutely.