I Don't Need You To Be Perfect

I don’t need you to be perfect.

My wish for my daughter is to stay imperfect. It is the season of spring here in New England. The grass is growing, the trees are blooming along with the flowers, and the insects are out. What does this mean? The pretty little human yellow flags are posted everywhere. Right now, I am living in a rental community, and each week, the landscapers come to our community to make the natural world look perfect, and they are successful at it, too. The grass is ideal, and the bark mulch is perfect. There is no sign of a weed in sight, and everything looks exquisite to the observer, but to keep it this way, to keep it perfect, there is a cost, and every other week this spring, they have been spraying chemicals to keep up this image.

I was walking my dog one day with my husband and daughter and told him, wow, nature is not natural anymore. Then it dawned on me that humans are not natural anymore, either. We try so hard to stay perfect and I get why. When we are perfect or our lawns, our house, our family, our bodies and literally everything else, you do not get pointed at or must deal with the remarks. You are accepted, but it comes with a price. The price of losing yourself.

We can get so caught up in the never-ending struggle to be accepted and

perfect, we venture further away from who we really are. I look at my daughter, and I see the most beautiful chubby rolls and the loudest laughter, and I think, wow, she is beautiful. I know one day she will feel the pressure to change this about herself to fit in and that day will be sad because she will say goodbye to a part of herself, but I will understand. I understand because I have done the same. I am going to try to keep modeling imperfection in hopes that this may change for her and society.

For anyone who is trying to do the same, I think that is quite brave of you. I hope nature and humans will one day go back to natural again.