The Importance of Imperfection

It's much harder to find blog fodder when you don't leave the house all day, at some point later this month I'm sure I'll be reduced to conning the cats into doing something cute.

But if I'm not leaving the house, the odds are good that I am getting some schoolwork done. I submitted my last assignment for Art History and got the "A" that I was expecting. (See progress bar for that at 95%!) So tomorrow I'll be making some flashcards out of all the assignments and quizzes. Then I'll spend the next couple weeks memorizing them and take the final exam - hopefully just before Thanksgiving.

And in a day of not leaving the house, knitting also gets done. I finished the blue hat:



Awwww...itdn' it cute? Doncha just wanna take it home and cuddle it? Yeah, whatever - ixnay on the illinesssay - I got the message. But seriously, as much as I like this hat, and it's predecessor, I really wish I had done about an inch more stockinette after the rib, and before decreasing for the crown. Right now it sort of sits on top of my head, very bowler-ish, which is fine but I think that extra inch might give me a better fit. And of course, the joy of knitting for perfectionists is that if something is not exactly right, you can just pull it apart, rip back to where it went wrong, and re-do it. So I could do that, and it really wouldn't be much to fix. But I'm finding myself reluctant to do so.

Oddly enough, when I think about it, I'd almost rather just knit another one from scratch. Call me crazy if you want (I do mean that, crazy and me are old friends, it won't hurt us to get re-acquainted from time to time) but I like knitting these hats up, they work up fairly quickly, until they hit the dpns in the final stretch they are quite portable, and thankfully - there is no sudden world shortage of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride worsted. (You'd tell me if heard a nasty rumor like that? Right? You wouldn't just buy it all up and hog it in your own stash, would you?) So really, why not just knit another one, and if it fits better, give this one away to someone else with a small head?

The other thing that ocurred to me is that, well...I'm actually a Perfectionist in Recovery. (Hi, my name is Kath and I'm a Perfectionist.) I've long since admitted to having a problem, being powerless, and spent quality time 12-steppin' my way to where I am now. Do I really want to risk a slip? It's hard to give up trying to be perfect all the time and it's even harder sometimes for people around you to accept. I tell people, "I used to be Perfect, and now I just settle for Damn Good." And learning to let go of something, and just let it be imperfect, is a big part of the process.

So this little blue hat isn't perfect. Maybe it's just fine as it is. Maybe it's a good hat, but it's just meant for someone else? Maybe it's better to just accept imperfections, and instead of seeing them as flaws, just look at them as the special qualities that make up a unique individual.