The quest for happy imperfection…

 My “ack” moment didn’t come as the result of a newly discovered muffintop, or jumping up a size. I’d gotten pretty used to the size escalator (+5 in under a year) and luckily I live where it’s cold, and with winter fast upon us, my festive stomach is comfortably hidden underneath layers of fleece, down, wool, cotton, and any other fabric I can slather on there. Instead, I guess my moment of “the madness has got to end” came when I realized that I had lost me, somewhere inside myself. I used to be a star soccer player, a backpacker, a gym rat, and a powerfully confident individual who believed she could do anything.  Now, I’m 22 and already can’t climb up a flight of stairs without feeling winded. My idea of a great time is mindless TV and a full spread of disgustingly fat-saturated fast food, connected to my face like a feedbag. And that’s not who I want to be.

So I decided to change, and fantasized about the new me. I threw myself into the gym until it hurt, I counted every calorie and resented every baby carrot. But the new me, oh man, she was going to be worth it. NewMe was a perfectly sculpted, toned, modern day goddess. NewMe would be perfectly coiffed, with a stylish wardrobe and complexion worthy of a DaVinci painting. She would be successful in every avenue of her life, conquering both the professional and personal worlds while barely lifting one of her perfectly manicured fingers. In my mind, I was convinced that when the time was right, NewMe would walk off of a magazine cover, and into CurrentMe’s life, replacing OldMe and filling her place with a fascinating, incredibly talented, and most important of all, beautiful woman worthy of envy.

And so I began preparations for NewMe’s arrival, compulsively trying to perfect every avenue of my life. I exorcised every dust bunny from my house. I arranged my pantry with exacting precision, and labeled the shelves in my fridge by day. I became the ziploc bag queen, portion controlling every single grape, carrot, and ounce of broccoli in the county. My beauty regimen began taking over my life, bleaching my teeth, plucking my eyebrows daily, trying my hardest to spend the hour a day it took to beat my hair into submission, and spending my spare time analyzing every pore on my face in agonizing detail. I planned workouts that would leave Lance Armstrong exhausted and meals that would make anyone with tastebuds cringe.

It’s no wonder that I couldn’t keep all those plates in the air. The unfortunate thing is that, because my goal was perfection, a single misstep caused the entire dream to come crashing down around me.  At that point, my all-or-nothing  mentality kicked in and took me on a TacoBellMcDonaldsLordIWasn’tEvenHungryHowDidIEatThatMuch joyride that crashed and burned into five extra pounds. In a brief fit of insanity, I considered throwing myself back into my all-consuming quest for perfection. I mean, the definition of insanity IS doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. But instead, I took some time to think and realized that the idea of perfection doesn’t make me happy- it terrifies me and gives me the shakes more than too many cups of coffee first thing in the morning.

I’ve since decided that I don’t want to be perfect. And I don’t want a NewMe. Because, you know what? There’s nothing wrong with me. I may carry a few more pounds than I’d like- but that doesn’t define me as a person. My focus now is on shedding that weight (literally and figuratively) to make room for the real me to shine through. So, here I am, trying to get out of my own way.

I’ll never be on a magazine cover, or have perfect hair. I’ll never have a perfect body or get my whole house straightened out. But, I’m going to be happy. Because I realize that being happy isn’t about being perfect. It’s about laughing because you’re too clumsy to iceskate, but trying anyway. It’s about accepting the fact that the only thing I can’t do is the thing I’m too scared to try. So here’s to trying new things, cooking without fear of vegetables, working out without fear of sweating, and leaping without fear of falling short.

So yes. I’ll have the GettingMyLifeBack with  a side of WhateverI’veBeenMissing with extra HeckYesLet’sDoThisThing. And don’t go easy on anything.