Finding completeness amidst constant imperfection.

This wall hanging is a quilt my mother made for me, a design I handpicked for my favorite room in my house: a sunroom with a peaked ceiling and exposed beams, and lots of natural light seeping in from windows on the three exterior walls.  This wall is a focal point when you enter the house from the front door. Initially, there was a TV here, and for months, it made me cringe every time I walked into my house and saw it there. Something about a TV as a focal point to a house just didn’t feel right to me. It had to go.

A feeling of completeness rushed over me when I hung the quilt on the wall.  And even though the room still has more to be done to it to make it perfect in my eyes, it somehow now feels complete and settled, even with its "leftover" furniture and lack of lemon trees that are begging to be placed in the far corners of the room. 

As I reflected on the sudden completion of the room by the mere hanging of a quilt, and therefore the entire house, it occurred to me that there is something to be said for feeling complete, satisfied, and whole, even in a state of imperfection.  Perhaps it's strange to be drawing a personal parallel from one’s house, but I think our surroundings, that is, our environment, generally are a reflection of who we are as people.   

As a searcher, a perfector, a constant striver, I am always trying to take something and make it better, shinier, prettier, more perfect.  In some ways this is perhaps a good thing, but constantly pursuing perfection creates continual feelings of discontent, dissatisfaction, and lack of appreciation in ourselves, situations, and things that are always going to inherently be flawed and imperfect in some way.  But, it's a process as is everything else, and I am learning that feeling complete and attaining perfection are not mutually exclusive -- completeness is not necessarily achieved by attaining perfection.

This wall quilt, a beautiful piece of art which singlehandedly transformed my favorite room of the house, is a beautiful symbol of achieving completion amidst a state of imperfection: a reminder that satisfaction and acceptance can and should be found in our constantly flawed selves, too.

But on another note, my cat is pretty damned perfect.