Imperfection

When I made my bed this morning, my kitty Mika was actively involved in every minute of it. No matter where I moved or what my hands were doing, she was right in there, walking all around, putting her head in everything, just becoming part of the whole process. It was a real dance and I was laughing so hard the whole time. She is just so funny sometimes and she makes everything such a joy. I couldn’t get the bottom afghan to hang straight with all her shenanigans, and I finally just gave up with a smile and left it to hang crooked for the day.

Another memory that comes to mind of this nature is the time that my two oldest boys (not really boys any more, they’re now 46 and 44) were trying to set up a new tv they had given me in my living room. It was too wide for the tv stand I had been using before, so as a temporary measure they were trying to rig up a makeshift structure to make the surface area wider. I was sitting in a chair just watching the whole thing play out in front of me, and I was laughing myself silly. You should have seen some of the things they came up with. Lots of different ideas were tried out – an upturned bucket, a pile of boxes, I think even a suitcase was used at one point – and they finally settled on a stool with a couple of my Japanese cookbooks on top. That combination resulted in a surface area that was even on top and wide enough for the tv to rest on solidly, so all were agreed that the end result was a success. And for me, watching the whole thing was so much fun and warmed my heart so much. My two boys, working together in deep concentration and with shared humor, were so invested in doing something good for me, something to make my life better. When they were done, I looked at the new tv setup with such joy. Every time I looked at it, I saw the fun they had and the love they have for me.

I have kept that tv setup. It was only intended to be a temporary thing until I purchased a wider tv stand, but I decided that it worked just fine and I didn’t need to spend the money on a new piece of furniture when my old one was still good and I liked it. And most of all, every time I look at that setup now, I remember that experience and I feel the overwhelming love, from them for me and from me for them, and that is the most precious part about it all to me.

I feel the same when I look at my bed afghan today. Like the tv stand, it’s not perfect in a picture perfect kind of way. But I smile when I remember Mika and I playing together as we made my bed, and I feel all the love that she and I share together. There is so much joy in that.

Both of these examples show something that was imperfect, and yet partly because it wasn’t perfect, there is so much joy and appreciation and love in both of them. I was thinking about that and I realized that a big part of the reason for that was because I accepted the imperfection in them – even more, I actually saw the beauty and celebrated the imperfection in them. The moments those experiences were created were some beautiful moments and there was so much joy and love in them. Seeing the imperfection in them is part of what makes them so beautiful.

Then I thought about myself. Other people. Ones I love and ones I don’t know. I thought about how we are all imperfect beings, and how often we do not accept ourselves as such. We carry inner beliefs and messages we give to ourselves and each other all the time that say “If you are not perfect, if you do something imperfectly, you are not OK. Your imperfections make you not OK.” We carry expectations of perfection, both of ourselves and others, and if we are not perfect and do something that is not perfect, we believe that is not OK.

That is just so wrong. We all have to work on challenging those irrational inner beliefs we carry and the messages we unconsciously give ourselves and others so often. We need to realize that everything is imperfect, including ourselves, and there is truth and beauty in that. We have to let go of our old expectations for things to be perfect and accept and appreciate the fact that there is beauty and joy in imperfection.