On Allowing Myself to Be Imperfect Around Here

Project 365, Day 209/365

I tend to have a lot of my best thoughts in the bathroom. Standing at the mirror plucking the rouge hairs on my face (I’d be lying if I said it was just around my eyebrows), rustling through my two tiny drawers to find a bobby pin, in the shower, in *ahem* other less mentionable places. The bathroom is thought GOLD for me, and I’m sure that’s not something only I can attest to. Bathroom = idea room. Anyhow, today, I was in my bathroom, swiping mascara across my eyelashes to not feel like a total schlub when I had a not-that-ground-breaking thought: I’d have a lot more fun around this blog if I just let myself be completely and utterly imperfect, specifically when it came to how I present my posts.

Meaning, I don’t share or write about a lot of things because I’d have to include photos and I stress too much about those looking good and professional that it stops me. WHO CARES. Listen, I came up in my career at professional magazines and websites, where imagery had to be tip top. It was the backbone of what I did for so long. So to think I’d just snap some crappy photo of myself in a handful of shirts I recently bought just to share how they look on a human body—you know, for instance—stops me in my tracks. “Eh, no way, Jose,” my brain tells me.

I’m in the process of testing some shampoo bars (more on that in the coming weeks), and keep not taking photos of the post-washes because I want them taken on our good camera, in good lighting, but I tend to wash my hair lately at night, and by the time it dries, it’s dark, so I say I’ll do it again the next day in the morning and then I don’t.

SO, that said, I’m giving myself permission to post ugly, “bad” (read: real) images because my life is not a magazine and honestly who cares? There are so many food-related things like recipes or gadgets or tips & tricks I’d write about if I didn’t care that the grout lines in my rental kitchen were kind of cruddy no matter how good I clean them, or that I have a stack of half-empty tea boxes next to like five hot sauces next to my toaster next to my not super aesthetically pleasing electric water kettle. Or that my stove is just a kind of cheap, crappy rental-grade gas range that always has random crumbs all over because the gas grates make it so hard to clean properly.

While I’ll always secretly wish I had beautiful photos of my life and home all the time, I also care nothing for the pressure to make my life and home look picture quality all the time…or even most of the time. Yes, I like nice things and nice design and nice rooms, but not to the point that it’ll keep me from having some more fun around here.

That’s it really for today. While this is all really about me, I do want to welcome you to give yourself a break. Start where you are. Lower the bar a little. With social media and everything being so visible these days, I feel like the bar is impossibly high for visual perfection…and it’s not real. Join me in being a little bit bad/imperfect at things, will ya?

See you tomorrow, FOAS.