PERFECTION
“Remember that sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.”
Dear Hadley,
An injury has taken me out of running for a while. And since I don't do well not moving and swimming in pools turns my hair green and my muscles constantly feel too tight, I decided to start yoga.
I got a private instructor because the thought of group classes for anything makes me want to run. And because the thought of learning something new and not doing it exactly right makes me want to cry.
Five weeks in and I'm loving the practice. It makes me feel stretched and sweaty and calm. And I feel glad to have the perfect teacher. She's strong. She uses normal words. She explains the reasons behind everything. She notices everything. Her voice and instructions are uplifting (not the airy kind of uplift, the substantive kind).
When I showed up for my second session she told me she had a shift in plans for how we were going to approach: fewer spontaneous movements, more structure, more routine, more consistency. After a single session, she had picked up on how I liked to do things. That I wanted to know even the smallest ways in which I was doing it wrong, so I could correct immediately. That I didn't like change without full understanding. That it was hard for me to move onto the next thing until I felt I had done the first thing perfectly.
Yoga, of course, is not about perfection.
Neither is life.
I know this, but I still wrestle with the striving.
And then I wrestle with whether my striving is flawed.
The older I get, the more control I have in most parts of life. And the more I find myself taking joy in getting things right. Not right as in the right answer (although I like that a whole lot too), but right as in done in a way that feels most satisfying to me. I wish I were the type of person who could say, "there's no better, no worse, it's all a matter of perspective," but that's not how I feel.
Countertops clean. Sheets ironed. Perfectly proportioned coffee mugs made by hand for the perfect hand-feel. Black t-shirts, hung evenly on neatly spaced hangers. My day, perfectly planned for enough work and enough space completely free. The exact right lighting for the exact task at hand. The exact right amount of water, fat, protein, movement. The exact right pillow for the perfect night's sleep. The perfectly faded gray blanket, intentionally folded to look like it wasn't folded at all.
Lately I've been wondering if this is good or not good—this need for things to be a specific way. It seems tiring. It seems uptight. But it doesn't feel that way to me. It just feels like me, doing my things the way I do them. Which is usually with a high degree of obsessiveness. And an equally high degree of calm and happy.
I wonder if this is what all people who struggle with their own degrees of perfectionism say. And I wonder if I should work on it. If I should try harder to be less obsessive, less concerned with best and right and great.
Sometimes I think it's definitely not worth working on. Sometimes I think it's one of my best qualities—which is delusional. It has its advantages, but so does letting go. A lot, definitely. Or at least a little. At least every once in a while. At least on things that don't matter too much (which is most things, but especially the symmetry of the pillows on the couch when you leave the house or a down dog).
Injuries suck but they are good for humility. Good to remind you that even your body rejects perfection. They are good for letting go.
I'm reminding myself to be easy on myself.
And on the people around me.
Which seems like a pursuit worthy of perfecting.
When I sat down to write you this letter, I had just finished ironing pillowcases and inspecting my eyebrows –looking at each hair, wondering if it should be trimmed or brushed in a new direction to achieve the look I'm going for (which is as natural as possible, which requires less work than plucking or waxing, but still some) - and I thought I wanted to tell you that I hope you waste less time than I do on the obsessing and the straightening and the stretching.
But right now, that’s not what I want to say. Right now, I think that if doing those things feels satisfying, then I hope you just do them.
You are all things good and I love you forever,
Aunt Liz
