"They're Perfect."

I grew up in a time when braces weren’t really a thing.And being in a military family, we never stayed anywhere long enough to even consider them.

So it wasn’t something I thought much about.

Until I became a mom.

All of my kids had braces. Appointments, adjustments, progress checks. And somewhere in all of that, I started noticing teeth.

My own included.

I noticed that my two front teeth were pulling inward.

So I decided to do Invisalign.

Quietly. Subtly.Most people didn’t even notice.

Until I took them off.

A friend looked at me and smiled,“They’re perfect.”

And I smiled back, thinking, yeah… they are

.

Then she added,“I kind of wish they weren’t.”

She told me she loved how my teeth used to have a little character.A little unpredictability. Something that didn’t look exactly like everyone else.

And the older I get, the more I feel that.

You get better at spotting what’s real.

Lately, I’ve been noticing this at every turn. Everything feels so polished, so clean, so perfect… manufactured.

It’s interesting, the more “perfect” and “curated” something is, the more I tune it out.

It’s like opening the mailbox and immediately sifting through junk mail.

Predictable.

Replaceable.

Easy to ignore.

But when something is a little off, a little human…

I trust it more.

Writing this blog post, I had to tell AI to back off three times.

Try this image.

Try this hook.

Use this pain point.

No, thank you.

I would rather be imperfect than pretend to be something I’m not.

(No matter how hard I look, I alwasy find mistakes)

Stay with what’s real.

That’s where you grow.

Best,

Lindsi