Imperfectly Happy

5 minute read

As a teen of the 90s, I absolutely want you to scream Imperfectly Happy as if you’re Bjork! Personally, I’m doing a lot of screaming this week.

The days in September, or August if your child’s school is particularly cruel, that form ‘back to school week’ can be tricky if you like things done right. I was one of those people. I’m in recovery. I’d like there to be meetings and a twelve-step programme that tells you that not everything has to be perfect, or homemade and that bearnaise sauce from a jar is just as nice as the one that takes 45 minutes to make from scratch. I’m on a journey, a self-help guru would call it a process.

Anyway, my screams this week started when my daughter’s monogrammed lunchbox didn’t arrive for the first day. In a panic, I flew up to Dunnes and bought two other lunchboxes that would do until the beautiful bento box I had ordered online arrived. I’ve discovered now that that one is coming from Australia so it may arrive just in time for next year.

How could she possibly walk through those doors without it I wailed to a friend. She laughed. Did our sandwiches not come wrapped in Brennan’s bread paper she mused. She was right. I was being ridiculous.

But there’s something about the back-to-school week that sets many of us on edge. We vow to do better than we’ve done before. Get it right. This year we’ll get up an hour earlier. Sit together as we eat a healthy breakfast, I’ll take the time to drink my coffee, bags will be packed the night before, PE kits will be double-checked. Nobody, and by nobody I mean me, will run out the door, with wet hair, throwing an errant shoe in the car and screaming at everyone that we’re going to be late.

No, that was last year. This year will be different.

And it will be different because I’ve come to see that perfect doesn’t matter. I did today’s school pickup in Birkenstocks and the faithful Aran cardigan that I never take off. I was working right up to the second I needed to leave to get there more or less on time and didn’t stop at a mirror on my way out the door. In the past, I would have reapplied some make-up, put on an outdoor shoe, at the very least dragged a brush through my hair.

In the past, my quest for everything to be ‘just right’ has meant I’ve missed out on moments because I’m planning the next one. Or that I didn’t take a nap because I had to make a second cake for that thing. Or that I spent far too much money because I needed fresh truffles, or a new outfit or even more gifts to make sure that everything was perfect.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not giving up on the perfect Christmas or making my kid’s faces light up with birthday tables or special days out. That’s just in my soul, part of my DNA. But I’m going to check myself.

There is so much perfection in the messy moments that I was trying to avoid.

So much joy to be had from cupcakes made from a box because you let your child lick the bowl. A lot of fun to be had when you ditch a homemade dinner for chips eaten as the sun sets beside the beach or a sneaky McDonald’s breakfast instead of the homemade pancakes that you got up at dawn to make the batter for.

Back to school for the last few years has been a trying time. Full of stress and anxiety, for everyone. Our kids don’t need to be first in line, they can be fired through the doors just as the bell rings if it means they get one more cuddle before they leave. They don’t need you looking pristine at pickup, they just need a smile. They don’t need to immediately do their homework because state exams and their futures depend on it. They might just need a milkshake on the way home with their mam or dad. Or a fiver sneaked into their bag so they can hang out with friends after school for an hour instead of sitting in their rooms and seeing them on screens as they did for 18 months.

I don’t know if it’s the pandemic or just mellowing into middle age, but perfection is overrated.

Today I used a pig-shaped cookie cutter to make cheese sandwiches and shoved them into the €3 emergency lunchbox. The reaction after school was brilliant. I’m going to spend my money on novelty-shaped cutters to make sandwiches fun instead of on stupidly expensive monogrammed lunch boxes that get fired into the great Tupperware drawer in the sky. More smiles, more messy, more fun, less perfection is what I’m aiming for this September. If we know anything now it’s that life can change like the direction of a breeze. I’m going to make memories instead of trying to keep everyone clean for the perfect family photo. The perfect family photo is now the one with everyone in it and that’s it. If you see me rolling up at school in my slippers, please smile and say hello. At least you know I’m comfortable!

Jennifer Stevens, September 2021