Make Your Peace With Imperfection. Yeah Whatever!


“Make Your Peace With Imperfection”. That was the title of my newest gift from my mother. A self help book that explained how, basically, I was trying too hard. I was trying too hard to make everything in my life perfect. And I’ll be the first to admit everything in my life is, to a degree absolutely perfect. I can’t help it though, it is a need to be tidy and neat and clean and, I suppose, deep down, a need to be liked. I want to be liked for being the neat person, the tidy person, the clean, always looking a million dollars person. I want to be the style queen, everyone’s friend; I want to be the popular girl. But, instead, I am the person with the obsessive tendencies. I sit at the weirdo table at lunch. I’m the person with the too-perfect, too-neat life.

But I’m going to make a stand. I am going to stop conforming. I am going to go wild. I will lick windows of buses and I will biro on freshly painted walls. I will let the mould grow in mugs and I will drop crisp crumbs on the settee. I will paint my nails day-glo green and I will skive off of school. I will jump in puddles and I will let all of my calls go to voicemail. I will party ‘til dawn and I will scream at the top of my lungs. I will cry when I feel like crying and I will laugh when it’s not ‘cool’ to smile. I will stay up late and I will eat leftovers for breakfast. I will not eat vegetables and I will ‘forget’ to do my homework. I will be the wild and carefree party animal that I have always wanted to be.

But when I am done being a changed person I think I’ll conform again. I will act my age and I will live my life according to the rules. I will take off my day-glo nail-polish, I will do my homework when it is due and I will vacuum the crumbs off of the settee. I will go back to my too- perfect, too-neat life. I will be me again.