On Perfection, Ideal Self, and Sacred Acts of Motherhood

You guys.  I was awesome yesterday.  I don’t know what was in my cereal, but whatever it was carried me through eight loads of laundry. E-i-g-h-t.  Eight.  And it wasn’t your normal weekly laundry, either.  It was back to school laundry, in which I washed, dried, and hung tons and tons of uniform shirts and bottoms.  Did I leave the last load sitting in the wash to mildew because I was too tired to get up and change it over to the drier? No!  Did I fold it all and put it away? Yes!  Is there still a random pile of socks sitting on the entertainment center waiting to be claimed?  For the first time since we’ve brought the little people into the world I can honestly answer, No!  No, there is not.  I was a machine, people.  A machine. (Fist pump!)

Not only that, but I filled out all the necessary back-to-school forms, stuffed backpacks, cleaned the house, and cooked dinner.  I even made muffins so that the kids could have a yummy back to school breakfast (Whaaaaaat? Who am I? I don’t even know.)  And at the end of the night, I sat back on the couch and thought to myself, “This is as close to motherly perfection as I’m ever going to get.”  At least, I hope that’s the closest I get to it, because I’m telling you, I can not do this crap every day.  

If there is  one thing about motherhood that makes my skin bristle, it’s the pressure to be perfect. Ten years in, and I’m still not sure where this pressure comes from, but I’m certain that it’s there.  My friend Jennifer gave me a theory that kind of fits with this- we call it the “Ideal Self”.  The ideal self is like a Pinterest Board- you see something and you think, “Heck yeah, I can do this!”.  And then you either never get around to it, or you do and the results are not even in the ballpark of what you were originally aiming to achieve.  There is always a gap between our ideal selves and who we really are.  But I think I’ve learned something about this gap. I think that maybe this is where us moms are supposed to be.  Glennon Melton helped me realize this.

At the beginning of this past summer, Miss G wrote a post titled “On Momotony and Sacred Work” in which she compares a mother’s work to that of monk’s... it’s repetitive, yet sacred.  I loved her perspective, but my brain read words like “monks” and “sacred” and connoted it with perfection.  I thought she was perpetuating the myth of motherhood; that we should all face it with serenity and sanctity.... with perfection.  My problem with that- well, there’s so many, but I’ll start with the fact that it’s easy to be holy and good inside a monastery where there is peace and quiet and most importantly, no children.  Try feeling sacred in a minivan where the longest record for “The Quiet Game” doesn’t even reach a minute.  Not the same thing.  

The post nettled me.  I chewed on it for weeks.  I didn’t let it go because I had this intuition that in my struggle with it, there was a truth that I needed to get to.  It wasn’t until I went back and reread it for the third time that it occurred to me, no where in there did she drop the word ‘perfect’.  She wasn’t asking us to be perfect, she was asking us to see our work as sacred. Sacred is not the same thing as perfect.  You can be imperfect and still be sacred.  Thus, everyone is perfectly imperfect.  Mind blown.  

 Let’s leave the practice of perfection for monks and the Dahlai Lama.  Let them become enlightened in the sanctity of their monasteries and on top of their mountains so that  they can bring their lessons back to the world at large.  Us moms, though? We’re lucky.  Our job is to teach the little ones about the world by living in it, in it’s messy and terrible beauty.  I think one of the best things I can teach my kids is that perfection is an illusion, that appreciation and wisdom comes from living down in the world’s sacred mess. 

So with that said, I’ll admit that yesterday was great.  Yesterday my ideal self got down with her bad self and made a temporary appearance in my home.  She was awesome.  Look at those sharpened pencils,that neat stack of paid bills, the dust free keyboard.  That is a perfectly clean desk.   But I know that anytime now, I’ll revert to being the mom who forgets when it’s her turn to brings snacks, who’ll be late to soccer practice, who is short on patience and long on her love for kettle chips.  Thus, when my desk is back to normal and covered in it’s usual array of school assignments, grocery lists, soccer schedules, bills, and anything else that pertains to the nitty gritty ins-and -outs of running of my famiily’s life, I’ll know my sacred work has really begun..  

Happy September, friends.  It brings me so much joy to be working down here in the messy sacred world of our kids, with you.