perfectionist's show and tell of imperfections

Imperfection. Imperfection. I am in fact imperfect. Of course I am. I used to pretend to be perfect. But now I stopped. Stopped pretending. My imperfections are odd to me. I can barely clean my room without a babysitter but I can manage and balance the lives of multiple kids and sometimes their parent’s without blinking, not much. I do things that are embarrassing and things I should have outgrown for instance. For instance, every time I shave my legs- usually with a new razor- I cut myself. Not a little nick-we are talking a serious gash of a novice almost always on the same ankle. Oh shit. Again. My roommates call it back to me. Oh shit. There is a scar there but I never never do shave perfectly. There is always one gash, gash that needs tp for me to wrap around it. Wrap around it. Then I always miss a spot. A spot somewhere along my ankle or knee-a mini forest resides. I sometimes get out of the shower and have to do a second draft of shaving. I have been shaving since I was 12. I have years and years of practice. I am imperfect. Imperfection.

That’s not all. I still get period stains. Yes, period stains although I am not a teenager anymore. You would think I would know how to deal and understand my flow. But no, not me. I am teenager trapped in 30 something body. I am. Once when traveling, I walked up a hill. My friend saw my butt and assumed it was a leaf. No I promptly returned and she realized it was a huge period stain. She thought it was a leaf. I was 23, I was in Spain, no one knew me. But I knew. Or one time in DC. I was standing in my non-profit office in a above the knee skirt tight around the waist flowing out. Down my leg came a drip of blood trickling down. I felt coldness from my thigh to my knee down to down my mid calf. Two co-workers- women- were there. Thank God they were women. I was 28 and had to toss my underwear in the garbage and go commando for the rest of the day. Whenever I have my period and I stay with a guy we share a bed, I pray and double up everything in the hopes I don’t stain his sheets or mine. Imperfect. I am imperfect.

I am messy but can find anything in my own chaos of organization. I don’t write things down. I just remember my schedule and the kids and the classes and the deadlines and the appointments all in my head. No planner, no i-phone, just in my mind. I’ve only missed an appointment twice in years. I can’t figure out shaving or my period but I can tell you how to talk family about DNR or ICU rules or how to pay rent once the house you live in is foreclosed or how to move across the country via only the post office. Or getting kids back and forth to activities the city with minutes to spare, still finding a spot in time, still having snack in time. I am imperfect. I can’t do the simplest things and laugh at myself. Shaving and periods have been mine forever why so hard for me to figure out? But there is something about this imperfection, this messy spilling holding it all together running into things embarrassment that must make me loveable. Loveable. Unique. Imperfect. Imperfection. Easier to love someone else’s. But your own, own imperfection. Imperfections. So. Much. Harder. To. Love.