Slightly imperfect …

I love visiting my uncle. He is my father’s younger brother and is, in fact, the only one of the close relatives who truly cares about my siblings and me aside from my parents. He is a nice and caring person. I love visiting him because he always treats me to good food and best of all, lets me have some of his slightly imperfect outfits that were left behind by the clothing designers. My uncle takes orders from different clothing designers like Ann Taylor, Lands’ End, and other designers from Europe or Japan. I can’t tell them apart –They are perfect or slightly imperfect for all I know. Seriously… Can you tell either an item you buy from boutiques or stores is perfect to begin with or not?

To me, a person who loves fashion, outfits are like us humans. – We were not perfect to begin with. Sometimes we are lucky that we pick the perfect outfit … sometimes, well, slightly imperfect.  Just like any relationship, sometimes we pick the perfect partner and sometimes a slightly imperfect one.

Even if we start out with perfect attire, somewhere down the road it may become imperfect. Perhaps due to the fact that we have gained or lost a few pounds. Same thing with our partners, somewhere down the road, our so-called perfect partners may indeed become imperfect. Perhaps it is due to the new change that we just adopted or perhaps that partner of us simply changed. Now, both the attire and the partner are no longer perfect. What do we do?

--courtesy of mintdesignblog.com

I recently read an article on The Wall Street Journal in which the author pointed out that more and more, in fact 1 out of 4 couples who are between 50 and older end up divorced. This number has increased from 1 out of 10 from 1990 to 1 out of 4 in 2009. Majority are simply growing apart, and the surveys showed that it wasn’t so much about being cheated in the relationship. And shockingly, 66% of the time it is initiated by us women. Interesting …

Going back to my analogy on the outfit. When the outfit grows out of style or simply no longer fits us, we can either donate it or simply store it for keepsake or perhaps find a way to fix it so that it fits again. What about relationships?

I am hoping to insert this thought in us: Just like the outfits that we once bought and loved, we sometimes grow out of our relationships, and we need to do whatever we can to relive that relationship again. I recognized that, just like some outfits that are not repairable or simply out of style, some relationships simply cannot be mended.  So be it! But, before we reach the end … perhaps we should step on a scale once a while to check whether our favorite outfit still fits. It is the same with our relationships. Sometimes we need to step on the relationship scale to check where we are. If it is slightly imperfect but still acceptable, that's fine … after all, we were imperfect to begin with …

Until next stop,
Journey of Life