LIFE LESSONS

IN SEARCH OF PERFECTION

We are all suckers.

We are putty in the hands of corporations.

But you! The young ones!

How awful it must be for you!

I honestly hadn't given this much thought- till a reader mentioned it as a concern and perhaps something I should touch on.

I spent many hours in thought.

During an interval, I had both boys in my room playing with the kittens. The dog too. They were waiting for me to 'change' so we could take a walk on the beach. I was into my fourth outfit try-on. (Some expletives had followed the dismissal of each one and feature in several vids of kittens learning to 'play-fight'.)

Me to Dylan, exasperated: "I told you, didn't I? Didn't I? I told you once a warm day came, I'd look fucking pregnant again!" (This because a previous conversation had taken place when he was in my room a couple of weeks back and I'd proudly shown off my flat stomach and got that other remark back: "Ye but your ass is flat too, mum.")

Dylan: "Phantom pregnancy again?" (Glee at my misfortune.)

Me: "Look!" (I was in a singlet and a pair of their hand-me-down Primary-School-age Richmond Footy Club jocks- the item I reach for when I have to wear underwear; they fit, damn it!)

Dylan: "Suck in your gut and hold your breath?"

Me: (Doing as he said and speaking in a very high-pitched voice) "I talk funny if I do this! Oh God, now I look like I am wearing a bloody sack!" (This, because I'd slipped on a dress mum had recently brought back from my cousin's boutique in Europe. It was what we call here a "Plus Size" store; the dress was... billowing; the sleeveless armholes almost at waist-level. I'd thrown it on thinking the 'looseness' would hide my... bloatedness?)

Dylan: "Mum- who cares?"

Me: "Huh?"

Me after several seconds of staring at his raised eyebrows: "Ohhhhhhh!"

I repeated it in my head: "Who cares?" Then I added some other stuff: "Who bloody cares whether I am bloated or not today? Who the fuck? Nobody is interested in the state of my stomach or what cycle it might be in! And if they are, then they are of no value to me anyway!"

Ohhhhhhh...

Why did I care so much, then?

I was my only and worst critic!

Like hell!

I whipped the sack off and threw on the perfect dress. (I just reached for the next one and put it on. Perfect.)

My young reader's thoughts still being mulled in the background, I, too, thought some more:

We tell ourselves that we need to 'perfect' our outer selves in order to appear... appealing, desirable, 'worth keeping', ideal... we tell ourselves that we must buy this or that; because of its promises. Wear makeup this way, cut hair in that style; dress in this manner, copy that celebrity's body image; the other's mannerisms.

We do this because we have been conditioned to seek close-to perfection. In every circumstance. We have been consistently and relentlessly bombarded by perfection as the ideal to aspire to. Our higher brain knows this perfection is both elusive and unattainable however so there's discord:

"I don't wanna look like everyone else or even care about how I look!"

   "What if you see your perfect mate huh? And they see you looking like this!"