Perfectionism...

I'm going to write something OTHER than a bitch-session about moving! Yay!

I have been blog-stalking of late, and I found a blog belonging to a friend from almost 15 years ago. She is now married with two little ones, a boy about two and a little girl she had this summer. She was talking about how she's coming to terms with perfectionism and how her kids are her main source of "letting go" of the idea of doing everything to perfection.

It got me thinking about my own sense of perfectionism, which some might be surprised to know I even possess. Many of my friends tell me that they'd love to have my free-spiritedness and ability to let go of stuff I can't control, and I have to say that it may stem out of the fact that I AM such a perfectionist. Truth be told, if I had my way, I'd do everything to the T. I was a straight-A student, and I never handed in work that I didn't feel was my absolute best. I ruin more paintings than I can count simply by refusing to let something just be "suggested" - I insist on making every detail "perfect". I like for my DVD's to be alphabetized, my art books to be separated from my other books, for my closet hangers to match, and for my bathroom to look like the ad from Martha Stewart Living. I'd love for my house to look like a freaking Pottery Barn catalog and for my shoes to all be in individual boxes. I'd love to dust everything every day and write all of my appointments down in a calendar. I'd like to go see the dentist every six months. I'd like to purge enough of my clothing for it all to fit in the space I have and while I'm at it, I'd like to see the bottom of the laundry hamper most days. I'd like for my drawings to be categorized and archived, and for ONCE be able to find tape when I need it. Above all, I'd love to finish the damn novel.

Unfortunately, reality is a tough pill to swallow. I may have gotten straight A's, but I know that I could have done better and retained more of that information that was rather costly. The DVD's are in a box right now, and there's an album full of the actual disks that I've never gotten around to matching up with their cases. Hell, the DVD shelves aren't even put together, and I'm blogging. My bathroom has a used hawaiian print shower curtain - it's not Martha, but it's free. My house does not and will never look like anything from Pottery Barn unless I actually move into a store. The only piece of furniture I own from there was trash-picked in the rain last year. I have boxes for my shoes, but not enough - it's kind of irking me that the flipflops are all in one shoebox. I don't even know where the damn duster is, I don't even own a calendar, I don't have dental insurance, I can't purge any more clothing without tears, and I think I generate more laundry than any person I've ever met. The drawings are a lost cause, and I can't tell you where one of my 10 rolls of tape is. The novel is still on about a thousand index cards, half of which probably got lost in the move.

Obviously, there's a fine line between perfectionism and chaos reigning supreme, and I tend to straddle that line like you won't believe. I genuinely try every day to get better, but I'm wondering these whether or not our search for perfection simply causes one facet of our lives to suffer when we attempt to improve another. My 28 years of experience tells me that the biggest thing we can do is to simply accept imperfections as part of life, but hey, we all know that's easier said than done. Lately, I'm just trying to be fine with accepting the imperfection of things that I simply can not control - things in which my hard work and effort will never affect the outcome of the situation. I can't help or change the fact that the top of my jewelry chest broke during the move. I can get another top for it, but I can't just change it back to where it was. I can't help the fact that the economy sucks and people aren't really buying art. I can market myself harder and work in jobs outside my field, but I can't force the American public to buy art.

So, now that we've talked about politics, let's talk about how imperfect we are. Seeing as how I know all these five-star women (for the record, I hated that term!), I know that almost all of you are perfectionists in some way, shape or form. What are you trying to perfect about yourself? What are you trying to "let go" of in terms of control? What drives you to tears when you can't get it right? How do you deal with all of it? What example of "perfection" around you do you envy?