graphic by ang ruiz
Minimalism is all about owning only what brings value to your life. It’s about eliminating the chaos and dedicating your time and energy to the few things that remain. The meticulous prioritization and reduction of excess that accompanies minimalism brings perfectionists fewer possessions, tasks, and distractions, and increases a sense of completion when it comes to goals of perfection. Because the end result must be “perfect,” a perfectionist cannot move on until the associated pieces are deemed flawless, which means perfectionists tend to live by the following doctrine: less is not less and less is not more; less is perfect.
Of course, “more is perfect” would be an easy perspective to adopt if you could surpass a need for simplicity. I’ve found this conundrum comparable to decorating a house. A perfectionist may find themself with bare walls, a monochromatic color scheme (most likely whites and neutrals), and no trinkets. Perfectionism is what leads to aesthetics of minimalism, as simplicity leaves little room for error and mess. Complexity can be a recipe for failure for perfectionists such as myself. Progressing with the home decor analogy, I shamefully did have several Pinterest boards dedicated to white marble countertops, white cabinets, and gray furniture (for the added pop of color, of course). This “Chip and Joanna Gaines modern rustic barn” home decor era coincided, and I don’t believe coincidentally, with the relationship of my first boyfriend, Evan: no mustache, no beard, clean room, bad boyfriend.
Evan was okay to look at. When I stared at his face for too long, his eyes were maybe a little too far apart, and the bridge of his nose bulged out a bit too much in the middle, but I was generally unbothered by his appearance, and I was especially unbothered by his lack of facial hair. Now, the presence of a mustache is most obvious during the act of kissing, and kissing this boy without a mustache felt like accidentally getting a big tomato chunk in a serving of marinara sauce. It was soft and warm, but not in the way that a cookie is. It was unsettling and alarming, like (hear me out here) if you were a cannibal eating human flesh, and got an unexpected blood clot amid the smooth flow of blood. It felt like eating scrambled eggs without salt and pepper: on paper, it was okay, but nauseating in the act. Or sometimes, it was like drinking a strong coffee watered down with too much milk. There was no bite. No kicker or headline. What was the addiction? Where was the eccentricity?
The mustache, with all its idiosyncrasies, and the art of a big funky accent lamp are the antithesis of minimalism. If the lamp were not so loud, and colorful, and spacious, there’d be no need to fidget with making a flamboyant dust collector look perfect. And if every strand of the mustache bowed to the rule of symmetry, it’d be the perfectionist’s dream, but “less is perfect,” so the effort of trying to make more just as impeccable typically drives me into a certain sort of mania – an obsession over what is flawed and what is amiss.
Towards the end of that facial hair-free relationship, I decided I wanted to ruin it. It was New Year’s Eve, and I feared that I had become overwhelmed with the prospect of an orderly life because mildew was growing on the soft parts of my face as I tried to be utterly too clean. I was too “perfect” oriented, so here was my resolution: In the new year, I would call my mother more to work on our disheveled relationship, and I would squeeze my own orange juice despite the stickiness it left on my fingertips. In the new year, I would turn my kitchen into a bakery and make a mess out of it in the process. In the new year, I would wish him goodness, but I wouldn’t be around to see it. I would tell him I loved him, and he would try to kiss me goodbye, but my mouth would taste of tangerine pulp and baked goods, and my first kiss of the year would be with a stubbly (maybe even handle-bar-having) man anyway. It was New Year’s Eve, and I decided I would be imperfect. I would be imperfect, and that would be okay.
And so I did my best impression of a home renovator trying to reverse the “all-white epidemic,” and spared him attempts to skirt around the issue of his lack of a funky accent lamp of a mustache. No bad blood there; we were only fifteen anyway. The following year, my home decor Pinterest board gradually began to look like the maddening ramblings of a maximalist as the neutral-colored minimalist in me evolved into an ability to not oversimplify for the sake of comfort. As pins of empty walls and white-painted wood faded out of style, my room began to fill, and I started to see the appeal of a five o’clock shadow.
I don’t kiss men without mustaches anymore, and I no longer succumb to the symptoms of perfectionism that make me want to paint my green banisters white for the comfort of plainness. My next home will have stained wooden cabinets and clementine-colored walls. I will decorate my bedroom with fiddle-leaf fig trees, and pictures of zebras, cowboys, and the New England skyline. I’ll collect little statues of rabbits playing various instruments and let them crowd my shelf like they’re giving a concert to the clothes I’ll allow myself to leave on the floor and the half-emptied cup of apple juice from days ago. When I kiss a boy in that room, he will have a mustache, and the imperfectness of his face will fit right in with my new disorderly life, and I will finally be free.
Minimalism: 2/5 stars