Freedom From Perfection

"Well, you have suffered enough

And warred with yourself

It's time that you won."

                                 -Glen Hansard, "Falling Slowly"

                         from the Once soundtrack

In case you were wondering, which you probably weren't but you'll hear about it anyway, there are always backstories to the stories that I post here.  There's the wondering if I should post x, y or z to the general public.  There's the factor of someone from high school (who I was always trying to impress) reading about how I now have one eye that crosses in and a right knee to go along with it.  There's the chance that someone to whom I normally wouldn't divulge ANY personal information is now reading about how I've had my self-esteem in the gutter and have recently become concerned in the summer about my ailing bikini body.

Before posting my recent pumping iron with old people post, I had my husband read it first.  I was actually just asking him to see if I was being offensive to older individuals. He didn't think so; in fact, he liked the post. But, as I was turning to leave the conversation he added, "if you don't mind telling everyone all that stuff about you."

And do you know how I responded, quite definitively in fact?

"Actually, I don't."

Revealing these flaws is my way of slowly freeing myself from the perfect image that I have, for years, tried to sustain.  I am gradually crawling out of that cocoon of hiding my once (seemingly) fatal flaws and am now just becoming me, in all of my imperfections.  I can laugh at the chinks in my armor, versus berating myself for having them. God knows they just keep accruing every year!

I'm not saying I never wear makeup or nice clothes, or never worry about how I look or sound or act.  (I'm not perfect at showing my imperfections, after all.) But I am feeling free to reveal more vulnerability, because that is what everyone needs.  We crave honesty from others.  We need to be reminded that we are not supposed to be the airbrushed image in the magazines and online. We all have- or will have- dark circles and blemishes, wrinkles and age spots. And they don't have to be surgically corrected for us to be presentable.

We don't have all the answers and sometimes feel like we know nothing about anything.  And that's just reality, not something to hide or be ashamed of.

As for our personalities, we need to have some of our "shortcomings" and "flaws" re-imagined as gifts.  Whether we're talkative or quiet, imaginative or realistic, emotion-centered vs. fact-centered, open-ended or orderly, we need to remember that, when channeled well, these traits are beneficial and even vital to making the world go round.

Vulnerability.  Freedom from perfection.

Isn't that a great place to start?