Broken, brittle, and colorless, my life, I mean…my nails unarguably needed a quick fix, so I decided, against my itsy-bitsy budget, to buy myself a little fret-free me-time at the new, non-English-speaking nail salon down the avenue from my apartment.

“This is going to be PER-FECT,” I thought as I stood outside the salon gazing happily at the magazine-entranced, visibly relaxed patrons inside. “Everything’s going to be great! For the next hour, my mind and body will be at ease. I will be free from work and worry. Pleasure and peace will unite, and I will be at rest.”

Half a second later, as I opened the door, no more than an inch, I saw a frail, sickly woman running frantically toward me gripping a basket full of frighteningly sharp, nail-trimming tools.

“Manicure, pedicure?!” the woman screeched as she cleared the cringe-worthy phlegm from her throat. “Twenty-two dollar. Ok? C’mon, c’mon. Pick color.”

“Just one frickin’ minute!” I wanted to scream, knocking the basket from her mangy, misshapen talons. “OK?! This is my RE-LAX-A-TION time, so don’t F it up. Understand?!”

But instead, I took a deep breath, grabbed the first wine-colored lacquer I could find, and followed the little nail-devil to my assigned seat.

As I submerged my weary feet, one set of toes at a time, the warm, bubbling water enveloped each one with an ever-so-gentle embrace, and my entire body instantaneously neared a state of relaxation. But my mind, unfortunately, did not make it that far thanks to the eerily freakish, phlegm-filled female at my toes and the high-intensity fluorescent bulbs blazing brightly above my head.

Wicked: That was the name of the hue I had chosen, and a more-than-apropos name for the heartless woman who nearly sawed off my toes and chopped my cuticles to pieces.

Despite the loopy nail lady and her tools o’ terror, I surprisingly exited the premises with a nice-looking set of nails. But I was neither happy nor relaxed, and to add anger to my disappointment, two minutes after leaving the salon, I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and chipped one of my ‘wicked’ nails.

“Well, there goes one hour and 22, hard-earned dollars down the drain, plus a well-undeserved tip!,” I cried aloud, strolling down 2nd Avenue with tears filling my eyes. “I hate my life!”

Indeed, my nail lady was a bit crazy, and, yes, my toenail did have a noticeable chip in it…but, so what? I left the salon with all ten toes, and my nails, as a whole, looking absolutely amazing.

So, I began to ponder, why is it that I always tend to focus on the flaws and consistently fail to see the whole (beautiful) picture? Is my obsession with perfection so out of control that a chipped nail suddenly becomes an all-out catastrophe?

Sadly, I’ve been perfection-obsessed for years.

Truth be told, I used to cry over crookedly cut bangs and bawl over B pluses. A C+ would be, no joke, the end of my world. A pimple? Disabling. And…um…I once kicked a kid for not catching a ball.

It’s been tough growing up as a perfectionist: The fear of failing, f-ing up, and/or not fulfilling self-imposed expectations (all side effects of perfectionism) have tortured my mind for years, hindering my access to much-needed happiness.

Interestingly, the perfectionism that has crippled me has also been a major component in my success. You see, I can’t seem to live sanely with it, but I can’t seem to do well without it.

So, what I need is a steadfast solution to my ‘perfect’ problem…

And, just by accident, I think I may have found it.

The story of my serendipitous self-recovery goes something like this: Excited about my new-found enjoyment in writing (thank you, Mike, for setting up my blog, and thank you, everyone, for taking the time to read it), I decided to splurge a lot on a brand-new, dove-hued, iBook G4 computer. You know, the one that has a cute, little, light-up apple on its cover.

About four weeks after my big purchase and four days after my ‘catastrophic’ mani-pedi mishap, I removed my pristine computer from its original protective packaging (having only used it about 14 times) to perform a quick email check, and as if it happened in slow motion, I accidentally brushed the computer’s colorless surface with my blood-red nail polish.

And so, there it was…glaring at me…laughing at me…a long, wicked strip of red on shiny white.

“What?!” I thought to myself. “How the hell did I do that?”

Immediately after that puzzling thought, my blood pressure sprinted passed high, landing squarely on panic. My hands began to shake, my heart, race. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to fix it, and I needed to fix it — fast — before the tears had a chance to form.

My first instinct was to try and scrape it off, but that didn’t work, so I ran to the bathroom, reached for a Q-tip, added a little bit of water to it, and carefully, as if I were a surgeon, scrubbed the computer’s glossy surface with the soft cotton tip. But again, nothing happened, and my panic quickly turned to pain. It hurt to think that a two-inch mark (my own stupid mistake) could be the end of my new computer’s prettiness and my new writing bliss.

So, without thinking it through (thoroughly), I grabbed something a bit stronger to remove the stain, something with a bit of a chemical kick to it: A Clorox Wipe.

I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed the spot with the citrus-scented cleansing wipe (my hands still trembling; my heart bursting with anxiety)…but, yet again, as if the damn thing were taunting me, nothing happened.

Clearly, the wicked strip, now coated with a fresh-n-fruity fragrance, was determined to make my computer’s cover its home.

Desperate…to hide it, to cover it up, to remove it from sight. Desperate for it to return to its perfect state, I did what any irrational person would do. I opened a bottle of Sally Hansen nail polish remover, dipped another Q-tip in the toxic mix, and removed the scarlet strip from my 1,000-dollar unit.

Aha! That’s it! I won!

Indeed, at first glance, the saga had ended. The heart-wrenching red had been removed and a smile returned to my face, my hands stopped quivering, my blood pressure slowed…and then…I took a second look, a third, a fourth…and…

I must have glanced at it (repeatedly) for at least an hour, peering at it from different angles, under different lights, until I admitted to myself that the chemical solution I had used wasn’t a ’solution’ at all but an irremovable mistake that I must live with — forever.

Indeed, the solvent removed more than the stain. The computer’s high-gloss finish and my spirit vanished, too.

Completely helpless, sadness overwhelmed me. I know. Dramatic, right? But completely true. I allowed a tiny flaw on a lifeless piece of plastic seize control of my mind, my heart…my life.

Foolish, I know, but I could not escape my obsession. The mark, almost unnoticeable, continued to overpower my thoughts. It catapulted me into a deep depression (I cried a painful cry) and the only way out, or so I thought, was to somehow acquire a new cover. But a new cover meant lying (telling Apple I received a flawed unit), and I never lie.

Morally conflicted, I didn’t know what to do, so I asked my sister for advice.

“Put a sticker on it and move on,” she said.

And my boyfriend…

“Paula, if you use it, you’re going to get marks on it.”

And my mother…

“Do whatever makes you happy.”

After several inconclusive conversations and unsatisfactory advice, I decided to follow my obsession, dismiss my conscience, make a quick trip to the Apple store, and resolve my problem.

But, when I arrived, I couldn’t do it…I couldn’t lie. So, I had the repair guy do it for me.

I told him my story with cleavage and the saddest of puppy-dog eyes. “Oh, poor me…my new computer…it’s all scratched and ruined…and…blah, blah blah…”

“Don’t worry,” he said wholeheartedly. “I’ll go in the back and see if I can fix it.”

He carried it away protectively, holding it close to him as if it were a baby, and as he walked away, I could feel my heart mending itself with just the thought of my mistake being permanently erased from my machine and my memory.

Ten minutes later, my heart ceased its restorative process and began to tear once again.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I did what I could. I talked to my manager, but the warranty just doesn’t cover aesthetic issues. If you want to replace it, it’ll cost you.”

“It’ll cost me?!” I replied. “It has already cost me.”

My time. My thoughts. My happiness. Enough is enough! And there you have it: A revelation.

“My computer works just fine, so what am I worrying about?” Finally, I could see the whole picture; I could see the ‘perfection’ in imperfection.

A chipped nail, a spilt coffee, gum on my favorite pair of jeans? So what? I can still walk, drink and sit, right?

So everything’s ‘perflect.’ Problem solved.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 14th, 2005 at 6:45 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.