EXPECT AND ACCEPT THE IMPERFECT

I was remembering a conversation with a former coworker. She was in the process of remodeling her home and was telling me about installing a wall to wall cream colored deep plush carpet. As she spoke I had images of plastic runners and plastic on the furniture to maintain her perfect room that was beginning to sound like something out of a magazine.

My first thought was that I couldn't live in such a house. I go home to relax, not to worry that I might spill something, drop something, or break something.

I recall many such rooms. I cleaned them for other people. At the end of the day I felt as if I was coming home to a shack by comparison.

Such was my 'all or nothing' thinking at the time.

I now know that my home is perfectly imperfect. There's dust. There's clutter. I can't even tell you how many times I've cleared off the kitchen table only to have 'stuff' reaccumulate. What good is a table if it just sits there with nothing on it?

I can clean and declutter but it always comes back. That's because it is a home that gets lived in. Imperfect, but that's how I like it.

I'd carried that 'all or nothing' attitude towards people too. I would put people on a pedestal and find it unbearable when their flaws became apparent. It was devastating to relationships.

I've come to realize that no one is perfect and that I wouldn't want them to be. I would always feel 'less than' and uncomfortable in the presence of a perfect person.

I've learned to temper my reactions when I feel let down by someone.

When you hear a person whose honesty you respect lie to someone else, do you suddenly consider them untrustworthy or do you accept that for whatever reason, they considered it necessary?

When the kindest, most generous person you have ever met says or does something mean, does that make them suddenly an awful person? Perhaps they had good reason to react that way or were simply having a bad day.

Certainly there are untrustworthy awful people out there, but most people, especially those you care about, are simply imperfect humans, just like ourselves. That is why you can feel comfortable with them.

Sometimes I have to step back a moment and remind myself to let people be who they are.