My New Year’s Resolution > To Be My Messy Self

In response to Coffee Challenge: Why I want to be a better me in 2022

My New Year’s Resolution is to be my imperfectly messy self.

For most of my life, I have been drowning in perfection. Saying the perfect thing, doing the perfect thing, being the perfect being. You could say that I am a swan swimming in circles, poised in graceful, white composure creating tiny ripples on the millpond of life; flapping my feet like f**k beneath the surface, just to stay afloat. And the truth is — I am so f**king done. I am done with pretending that I am pure white grace.

I am not pure white. I am not a swan. I am imperfectly human and this is my grace.

Bread or Pickles?

Someone once told me that I was the next best thing since sliced bread.

At the time, I took this as a compliment. Now I look back and cringe — who wants to be a piece of perfectly sliced, plain white bread? I don’t want to be a daily dose of mundane. I want to be the pickles and the gherkins and the taste sensations that ignite the tongues of life. I want to be the Willy Wonka Popping Candy that makes people feel alive.

All my life I have been hiding, shying away into the shadows pleasing everyone and anyone. My soul has been bursting at the seams; trying to squeeze my imperfectly messy self into the tight seams of a perfect human. And last week, the seams got way too tight. My soul exploded.

I was lying in my gorgeous van kissing my gorgeous boyfriend and out of nowhere I felt an uneasy feeling rise from my core. I fought this feeling back and pushed it down, an airbag imploding on itself and I gulped as I struggled to breathe. I tried furiously to keep my body from imploding and exploding, unsure which one was about to ravage my soul.

And out of nowhere, I experienced the big bang.

My soul literally exploded and burst out of my skin. It was as if my energy had become too big and too bright to be contained and constrained within my physical vessel anymore. My legs shook, my heart trembled and tears poured down my face in an uncontrollable, raging river of anger and fury. It was as if every piece of my soul had been dragged up to the surface, all the pieces that I had hidden quietly for years just been waiting to be seen.

And f**k me, were they powerful.

So powerful, that I completely lost control. For over an hour, I cried whilst my body shook and my soul screamed. At one point I think I even numbed out and lay there just trying to remember how to breathe. This moment was humble, this moment was powerful.

This was the moment that I decided to be my messy self. And this was the moment that I truly allowed someone else to see everything that I had been holding back for so long. I realised, that I could not and would not carry on holding all of this s**t inside my body. I had to change, I wanted to change and I vowed to change.

And so, my New Year’s Resolution was born.

To embrace my imperfectly messy self — to show people the real me.

After an hour of crying and having one of the most profound experiences of my life, I rolled out of the side door of my van, following my boyfriend out into the windy car park at 2 am — naked. We threw our arms in the air and ran around, barefoot, naked and wind swept. I screamed, I whooped, I danced and laughed; filling my body back up with the elixir of life.

I felt so f**king alive. And this New Year I vow to cultivate more of this feeling.

How Do I Want to Improve Myself?

I want to improve myself by undoing myself. I want to undo every last piece of perfection; unravelling myself in a stream of messy stardust, sprinkling my soul wildly across the sky.

I want to dress in outrageous colours, mint green and orange; exploding my aura into a supernova of life. I want to lick dirty spoons covered in yoghurt and chocolate and leave my hair tangled in outrageous knots and dreadlocks. I want to wake up and say f**k it and cancel all of my plans, to lay in my bed for the day eating popcorn and whipped cream.

I want to say I’m struggling, when I am really struggling. I want to ask for help and accept others’ blessings. I want to step up and stand up and be wildly inappropriate, and roll around in laughter when others laugh at me being senseless. I want to learn to roll and get high on a shitty little roll-up, to try magic mushrooms and enjoy being reckless.

I want to say ‘Hey you, you just really upset me, but I’m telling you now because you really mean a lot to me.’ I want to take a day off work and then maybe another, because all I want to do is make love with my lover. I want to stay up late and not watch the clock, to create all night and give birth to poetry at dawn.

I want to be incandescently sexy, buy some new make-up and wear it proudly with blonde hair and red lipstick. I want to eat porridge for dinner and forget to do my washing, to laugh when my reds dye my whites and I can wear pink or nothing. I want to lose my s**t, and stop being such a good little flower and then lose it again and feel my full blown power. I want to mess up and f**k up and be wildly imperfect and enjoy every moment as a person less perfect.

Self-Help Tips for Unravelling Perfectionists:

1. Wake up and tap into your joy state > if your day feels heavy, ask yourself — ‘How can I have more fun?’
2. Practise leaving one thing until tomorrow > think laundry, chores and to-do lists.
3. Challenge yourself to put something imperfect out into the world > this could be a piece of writing, some artwork or even a simple post on social media.
4. Buy a new piece of clothing that really makes you feel like you > not the person you think you should be.
5. Let yourself be seen by others > as a real, imperfect, messy human being.

This post feels messy, this post feels imperfect and to be quite honest, it feels like it jumps all over the place. I’m not sure if swans, pickles, white bread and gherkins translate into the perfect blog post to inspire unravelling perfectionists. However, I know that it will translate and resonate with all you beautiful, messy humans out there. You are imperfectly human and this is your grace, may you walk this earth and inspire, with your weird and wonderful ways.