Perfection by Julie Metz

This has been an unbelievably snowy winter!  We are in the last two days of January, and we've already missed five days of school.  Aside from accumulating four and a half feet of snow and these school days that will need to be made up in the beautiful, sunny, happy days of June (when everyone's mind has been on vacation since May 1st), I've discovered that I've gained a little more than I've bargained for this month.  I haven't stepped on a scale recently, but the waist line in my jeans is clearly screaming, "Cool it, lady.  We're reaching our max."  It's so hard to go outside for my daily walk in all of this snow and ice, and it's so easy to eat those brownies and Hershey Kisses by the handful because they speak to me in a much more tantalizing and soothing voice than those pesky uptight jeans.

It has also been easy to spend money.  What else is there to do when you're snowed in?  Usually, I check books out of the library.  But cabin fever has been driving and chauffering me to the malls and bookstores in search of atmospheric change.  I need to get out and do something other than clean house, shovel snow, and watch TV.  So on top of snow, school days, and a few extra pounds (please, God, only be a few), I have gained a few more books for my home library.  One of the books that I randomly bought in a hazy, vulnerable moment of snow-day impulsivity is Perfection:  A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal by Julie Metz.

One of the things that attracted me to the book was its title, more specifically, the word "renewal."  I think many of us eventually hit a point or even several points in our lives where we feel the desire to change something about ourselves and how we live.  We want to reinvent ourselves because we believe it will provide us with a renewed sense of happiness and success.  I wanted to find out how this woman could renew herself after discovering her husband's infedelities after he suddenly dies.  At the age of 44, Metz is not only left a widow and a single mother of a six-year old daughter, but she is now left with the knowledge of her husband's secret life full of lies and deceit.  She plods through moments of loneliness and despair but somehow finds a way to summon the fortitude to confront her husband's mistresses and move past his affairs.

Metz provides us with an honest and bold look into her personal life through a natural prose that guides us easily from one experience to the next.  I enjoyed how she provided us with subtle hints into people's personalities aimed to steer our thinking toward the guilt or innocence of a particular party.  These clues also appeared to be personal retrospective discoveries that she made while writing her memoir.  The book did have a few low points for me, though.  For example, the section devoted to Darwin's Theory of Evolution to explain why men cheat was a bit technical and dull to read.  I also found my mind wandering as she ran through a detailed laundry list of every one (I'm assuming every one but who can be sure) of her sexual encounters since college.  Granted, I understand the author's purpose for including these tales (the need to belong, feel loved, important, special, etc., etc.) but didn't feel like we needed to be dragged through so many of them.  Fortunately, these bumps and baubles did not diminish my admiration for her ability to forgive.  Though she does not forgive everyone involved, she finds a way to make a series of choices that allow her to trudge through, make changes, and find peace for herself and daughter.

Other memoirs I've enjoyed:
     *  Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
     *  A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown
     *  The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
     *  Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs