Show Your Work

We know you're not flawless, and how boring would it be if you were?

Definitely not perfect, but beautiful all the same

I’ve never been one for perfection. Well, let me adjust that before I hear my husband scoff from the other room: I’ve never been one to expect perfection, from myself or anyone else. And considering how hard I am on myself, it sometimes comes as a surprise to me how comfortable I am with my own imperfection.

For example, I have a lot of scars from the various surgeries I’ve had throughout my life – including the gastric bypass I had at 17 and the cosmetic surgeries that followed¹ – and even when I was young I didn’t hate them. I couldn’t even commit to the most basic scar mitigation creams. I think part of it was that the scars felt like a drop in the ugly bucket compared to the loose skin they’d replaced, but also I figured anyone who would recoil at a long scar down my inner arm would be generally horrified by my overall appearance, so why bother trying to put lipstick on what they’d consider to be an irredeemable pig? Kind of a weird perspective for me to have, especially after going through years of surgeries to lipstick myself up, but I guess I contain multitudes (of tormented perspectives).

Anyway, whether because it’s always felt outside my reach to provide perfection (especially when it comes to physical appearance) or because of my natural/nurtured instinct that even considering myself to be ‘good enough’ would be tantamount to bragging, I’m not sure. But whatever the reason, for as long as I can remember I’ve walked a very fine and strange line between constantly striving for improvement and knowing that perfection is either a myth or simply unlikely in my case.

I can see how this would sound sad: the concept of knowing I’ll never be perfect might sound (especially to an American Exceptionalism-pilled ear) like pre-emptive self-defeat. And I will admit that I often wish I could stop trying so hard to improve, especially when there’s no such thing as an end goal (more on my eternal struggle with perfectionism in the linked post below). But the thing about knowing perfection is impossible is that it frees me from the chains of perceived perfection.

And as I’ve aged and gained experience and generally chilled the fuck out, I’ve leaned into that freedom. I almost never wear makeup or try to be ‘the cool girl’ anymore. I don’t have to pretend I “woke up like this” or have my emotional shit together or know how to stitch a perfect counted needlepoint pattern (I know you were wondering when that photo would make sense). Instead, I get to feel proud of myself for my efforts, and for showing my work. The failures I’ve learned from, the heartbreak I’ve recovered from (mostly), the setbacks I’ve pivoted away from – and when I do get something right (or mostly right) it feels earned. I like that feeling. Plus, when I show up authentically and people respond positively, I don’t live in fear of them catching some glimpse of the hidden bits of my personality (or my pushup-braless boobs) and bolting in horror.

There’s a reason my upcoming memoir is titled Make Do and Mend². My life has been and continues to be made up of a series of challenges that I either accept, overcome, or, more often, work my way through with a combination of acceptance and overcoming. I suspect this is true for a lot of people, which is exactly why I like writing about it and sharing that writing. This memoir has gone through a few different titles in its time (I’ve always struggled with the high pressure/limited space of titles, and tweets for that matter), but my book coach and I recently landed on this one because it touches the struggle portrayed in the book but also the beauty in visible mending, which is something I’m getting more into in my crafting life. I think this first attempt at mending one of the many moth holes in a favorite sweater is a good start, although it is (of course) far from perfect.

A Not-random-because-I-worked-very-hard-on-it Joy:

I started knitting my husband a pair of socks in January, for our seven-year wedding anniversary. I’d never knitted anything before and, in classic fashion, I decided I’d cut my teeth on knitting thousands of tiny stitches in the round with stretchless yarn because I wanted to make them 100% alpaca (the man likes natural fibers). It was…a learning experience. The first one took forever and then wouldn’t fit on his foot. BUT the second one, despite needing to be stretched a bit during the blocking process, did in fact cover his foot completely, and then I managed to make another one to match that one. So I’m celebrating this massive success before I take a break and go back to crocheting for a while to recover from this six-month crash course in knitting. And if he never wears them because they’re not very comfortable, we can always frame them.

1. North American edition of Navel Gazing drops in early 2026!

2. Also coming in early 2026! We’re working on the cover now and I’m so excited for you all to see it.