“No one is perfect…that’s why pencils have erasers.” - Unknown

I was approached recently by an acquaintance that was of course trying to pay me a compliment but what she said, really got me thinking.  It was about my family and how we are continuously doing fun things together.  In a nutshell, she said she looks at us as the perfect family.  I do indeed look at my existence and feel very blessed.  I love my husband and daughter.  I think we are rather lucky but we do work hard for what we have, it’s not easy, by any stretch of the imagination.  Maybe we are perfect;  we have each other, our health, our attractive looks, ALL of our fortune, our mansion of a house,  our flawless bodies, our above average intelligence, our stellar personalities, our royal lineage,  our pleasant wit and our downright impeccable love to be around one another and don’t forget the lavish cars in our garage.   So, I may have taken a few liberties there, you’ll have to choose on which ones.   Come on, PERFECT, really????  

On one hand, I was flattered because we NEVER step back and look at our own lives and think wow, it’s awe-inspiring to be me (maybe we should all do that more often).  On the other hand, PERFECT, that is a hard word to live up to!  Perfect is the last adjective I would use to portray my family.  Perfect is defined by Webster, as having no mistakes or flaws.  Perfect, my family?  That is somewhat laughable, completely BONKERS!   My guess is no one heard me the other day when I was shrieking at my 9 year old for sassing back or the day before that or the day before that, it seems to have become a steady trend, at our house, our normal.  Don’t judge me; you all have something comparable going on in your household too, some of us are just better at keeping it behind closed doors, so it looks like you are the picture-perfect parent.   I’m sure most of you haven’t seen my house when it’s in shambles; the laundry stacked higher than the bed, when the dust bunnies could run away with the TV, the floors are so dirty they look more like an art project, the day old dried out cat puke stains on the carpets that I have stepped over for a day or the dishes stacked in the sink that are turning into science experiments.  Sounds like perfection to me!  Must be no one was there when I had a Mountain Dew and chocolate chips cookies the other day for breakfast.   I'm not sure I read in any health magazines that read get the PERFECT body and have PERFECT health while drinking Mountain Dew.  No one sees when my husband and I are yelling at one another following a stressful day.  Wait I know some of you will say no way, he’s such a nice guy but in reality we do fight and you know that nice guy, he isn’t PERFECT either!  Four for four on the perfection; perfect parents, perfect house, perfect diet, and perfect marriage!!!

One of my favorite quotes is, “No one is perfect…that’s why pencils have erasers.”  Be careful when you look at someone else’s life and think it’s perfect.  Is there really a perfect?  HELL NO!  There is your normal and your way of doing things, no one is perfect and no one is right.  Except me of course!!  Can you tell I’m an only child with loving parents and a wife with a supportive husband?  I’ve got loads of self-esteem, probably too much!   I’m fortunate and I know it but truthfully no one knows the daily struggles we each face.  One of the reasons for my hatred of the world PERFECT is that I’ve been duped too.  In a few cases in my life, I have looked at other families and thought; they really have their stuff together and thought they are the most perfect family in the world!  Why can’t we be more like them?  That thinking always comes back to bite me the ass.  Those seemingly perfect families always have skeletons come out of their closets and destroy the illusion of perfection, making me think, is there really a perfect?

It’s easy to look at the neighbors and think their grass is greener but honestly I’m sure the inside of the house is a jumbled mess.   Trying to keep up with the Jones is a recipe for disaster.  Perfection is an illusion that no one really reaches.  Some people are just really good magicians while others flunked out of magic school and excelled more in clown college, like me.   On the outside, people FAKE perfection all the time.  I think imperfection makes the world a little more beautiful.  Things would be so boring if we were all the same.  The image that we present to the world is FAKE more times than not.  Unless you are very close friends or family, most likely you see others representatives; the ones who have a perfectly tidy house because they cleaned for hours on end before you came over, the ones who are all dressed up with perfect hair and makeup but go home and throw on sweatpants and the ones who are nice and sweet to everyone but go home and chinwag about all the people in the day’s happenings.  We’ve all done these things.  It’s not to say that everything about everyone is phony, I’m simply saying we put on our best face when we don’t know people.  We try to put out the best impression we can while not always being true to ourselves.  I’d like to think I’m an open book but not to everyone, to some I do hold my cards a little closer to my chest and carry myself a little better.  My two cents, every once in a while, let the curtain up to your imperfections; show the world you are human.  Don’t send your representatives and just be who you are really meant to be. 

The word “PERFECT” is such a subjective word that is open to interpretation.  Who’s to say what perfect is.  We all have dissimilar ideas for perfection.  To some, my life and my family might seem picture-perfect but to me there is always more to strive to become who I want to be and the family down the street looks more like perfection to me.  I am genuinely flattered by the thought that someone else looks at my household as the IDEAL but perfect we are NOT.  We all have struggles and we are all on the same rollercoaster ride of life.  Some of us have their hands up and are smiling, some of us feel sick to our stomachs, some of us are screaming the whole way, while others of us just want to get off the ride, no matter what our reactions throughout the ride, we are all buckled into the seats together.  One of the most satisfying things for me is when you see someone else struggle with the same things you are faced with (not that it’s great to see the struggle).  You know, when you see a mother in the store yelling at their child (I can’t help but get a little smirk on my face – and be glad it isn’t me doing that today or you look at them with a little nod to let them know you’ve been there before) or you go to someone’s house and they say don’t mind this mess (if only they knew how many dishes were in my sink).   As long as we learn from our mistakes and grow to be a better person, I think we are ALL PERFECT at being human.  Erase all your thoughts that someone else’s life is so perfect and sharpen your life’s pencil.  Start now, put your pencil to paper and make your own perfection and when you make a mistake use the eraser that’s what it is for, forget about it, move on and start over.  Make your own normal and hopefully it won’t look like everybody else’s.  Kick the word PERFECT to the curb and remember perfection is in the eye of the beholder.   Always keep in mind; it’s about how we progress in life not about how perfect we are.