Imperfect

It has occurred to me in this life journey that celebrating the imperfect is a healthy outlook. As a perfectionist, and as a person in recovery from an eating disorder and alcoholism, I have been known to center my thoughts on the imperfect, but from a flawed perspective. I have often scrutinized my body, my habits, my accomplishments, and my behaviors in a way that leads to negative thought and an unsatisfactory perspective on life. It is possible to heal and turn my life around, if I begin to appreciate all that I am, including the imperfect.

This exercise comes down to small moments throughout my day, and on all levels of existence. I have found great joy lately in observing the muddy footprints on my white pergo floors. Strewn throughout the house are trails of these footprints, down the halls, all over the kitchen, and in my office. There is mud everywhere it seems, and when we clean it up, it comes right back. The yard is also muddy, and a place that I value the maintenance I put into it. I pick up the poop, gather the toys and debris, mow in the Spring and Summer, and weed and water. I love my yard. Right now with all that my dog is, and he is a lot of dog, the grass has become thin and muddy, and some places have been worn away completely. I come home and my dog jumps up on me, leaving huge muddy paw prints on my coats or sweaters. There is a surrender that is happening within me. It feels like imperfection, could be seen as a mess, but really is an opportunity to love and appreciate this beautiful animal that has come into my life. This is the current jumping off point for me.

Jay, my German shepherd, has inspired me to write a blog about valuing and appreciating the imperfect. I have been enjoying sitting at the ancient willow tree down in the field in the rain, on recent walks with Jay. I look at the tree, and wonder why my mother insisted on cutting off branches large and small, with the chain saw. It used to bother me because I believed the tree to be sentient and wild, and it is a place that I often meditate. As I sit in the rain on one of the branches, I take in the misty wet world around me. There is so much to love and appreciate about nature, winter on Lopez, my dog, the tree… I get lost and then unravel a bit as I accept and love the tree as it is.

My body too, is a universe of imperfect, and I regularly have to fight off negative thoughts due to my history with the psychological addiction of anorexia-bulimia that I had ages 14 - 16. I am getting older too, and my hair is going grey and thinning. How do I manage to celebrate the body that I am in, and love and accept every curve, fold, muscle, hair and pore on my body? It takes perspective, I believe. It takes understanding that the universe is made up of millions of imperfect bodies, and situations. I don’t have to see myself as imperfect, I simply have to honor and celebrate the imperfect. If I do that, I may come to prefer myself the way that I am naturally. I heard on social media recently from a health influencer, that all we really need to do to be healthier and possibly shed a few pounds is to make the right choice seven out of ten times. Good choices, along with loving my body just the way it is, will go a long way. I know that it is okay to change, but it is not mandatory. I can then relinquish the thoughts I have about why I need to change my imperfect body. Actually I love the imperfections. I am not believing that I am actually perfect, rather I am loving the fact that I am not.

Another way that I suffer in my life when I am not valuing the moment and all that I am naturally, imperfections and all, is that I can compare my success with other folks. Really most of it is imagined, and I imagine that folks are happier, wealthier, more accomplished, and more attractive than me. Obviously this is a waste of time. If I engage with the practice of valuing all of who I am, and celebrating my imperfections, I begin to see that there is value in my mental illness, in my hospitalizations, and in my struggles with my eating disorder and alcoholism. The truth is that there is endless value in these tough experiences that I have had. I have learned about spirituality, art, recovery, faith, and inner speculation on this long road over the last thirty years. I was a very accomplished teenager, and was admitted to all three colleges I applied to, one being Mills college, an all women’s west coast Ivy league school. I participated in sports and athletics there, and learned a lot. My very imperfect time there, as I struggled with grades because of my mental illness, also resulted in some awesome and amazing experiences. I dated women, explored the Bay Area, went to music concerts, joined political groups, explored Stanford’s campus and library, and as I said ran cross country and rowed crew. For years and years I could not reflect on my time there because it ended my second semester in a terrible psychotic break and short hospitalization. Now I can see through all of the imperfectness of it, the bad grades, the inability to cement good friendships, and the shipwreck of an ending. I can see that I am special and did very well considering.

Whether it is muddy paw prints, trauma from my past, my plus sized body, or my lack of accumulated wealth and college degrees, I am a very blessed human being with many talents and accomplishments. I can savor the imperfections of my life, and then find true glory in all that is going well. I love my family and we are close, I am in love and have been for 26 years, I am a successful writer and poet, and all is well with my health and my family currently. Still, taking the time to absorb and appreciate what may seem imperfect, proves to be an important daily practice for keeping up a positive outlook on life as well as staying in the moment.