Clap your hands.

Three of the women in my unit at work received their copies of a workout series that’s in heavy rotation on Saturday morning infomercials.  They’re very excited and discussed it all morning.

 I am a former infomercial lover.  I loved the hope of a new program or product telling me how I can finally, FINALLY, become perfect.  Clear complexion, narrow hips, flat abs, a poreless glowing face.  It’s thrilling, knowing you’re just a few simple steps away from your Sports Illustrated cover debut.

And then it arrives in the mail, and it’s okay, but doesn’t quite live up to its promise.  Over time, it slips to the back of a shelf.  Did it fail?  Did you?  Does it matter?

The result is the same.  Perfection thwarted.  Hopes dashed.  Back to square one.  Because if you just stop, if you don’t try the next thing, you’re giving up, right?  And if you give up, you’re admitting you can’t be perfect, and if you can’t be perfect, what’s the use? 

Initially, that was the hardest part of giving up my diet: giving up the idea that I was just five pounds away from bliss.  That in five (or 10 or maybe 20) pounds I’d be the picture of perfection.  My cellulite would disappear (A cruel fact of weight loss?  Sometimes cellulite gets worse.), my thighs would be slender and toned, pants would fit the instant I slipped them on.  I would suddenly be so pretty it would erase all the years of not being pretty, of not being perfect.

But it’s a lie.  I can’t be perfect because I live a flawed, human life.  I have scars from childhood, I have wrinkles from being thirty, I have a squishy backside because all the women in my family have squishy backsides.  My body is as imperfect as my life.  My house is rarely without drifting tumbleweeds of dog hair, my checkbook is unbalanced, I’m frequently late to work, sometimes I am a bad wife, bad daughter, bad sister, bad friend.

But I’m also very happy.  And being happy in my imperfect body and my imperfect life?  Well, that doesn’t cost me 3 easy payments of $29.99, or, you know, my sense of self-love and self-respect.  And that makes me even happier.