Letting Go of Leo: How I Broke up with Perfection

Copyright © 2017 Simi Botic.

Editor: Jessica Turpin Dawson

Illustrations by: Joslyn Villapando

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com

1 (877) 407-4847

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-9270-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-9271-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-9328-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017918079

Balboa Press rev. date: 12/13/2017

Contents

Foreword By Katie Dalebout

A Note On Writing This Book And The Lesson I Had To Learn (Again)

Blissfully Unconcerned / I’m Going To Marry Leo

I Think I’ll Ride Bikes Instead

Chaffing Wool Shorts

Semi Butt Itch

It’s The Puppet Lady

In The Thick Of It / Not Winning An Oscar

Ross And Rachel Are Meant To Be Together

Divine Intervention Via Double Stuffed Oreos

I Bet Beyoncé Doesn’t Eat Stale Cookies

Swallow Them Whole Like A Candyconda

I’ll Just Run These Two Miles

Slightly Very Embarrassing, But True

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel / The One Time I Ate A Roll Of Laxatives

The Dirty F Word

Those Aren’t Candy

Eating French Fries And Not Hating Myself

A Stuffed Lace Sausage

Living With A Judgmental Bully

Shedding The Shoulds / Two Bananas, Real Bacon, And Hairy Armpits

The Other Side Of My Goal Weight

F-E-A-R

The Best Watermelon Of My Life

Taking Up Space

I Jumped In The Damn Waves

Ditch The Bra To Feel The Feelings

Preach It, Cher!

The Nice Place In Between

Showing Up / Nailing It 23% Of The Time

That’S A Lot Of Pressure For A Pair Of Pants

It’s So Nice To Have College Simi Back

Who Wears Short Shorts?

I’m Falling Behind According To Instagram

Don’t Forget The Coconut Water

You’ve Got Child-Birthing Hips

Nipple Pads Make Terrible Tissues

Acknowledgments

To my dad, mama, and sister Christiana, for making home a space where it was safe to feel my feelings, safe to use my voice, and safe to be myself. Thank you for teaching me to be strong, kind, honest, and authentic. Thank you for helping me come home to those values when I lost my way (many times). Thank you for raising me to have faith – in God, in others, and in myself. And for helping me believe in miracles. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Foreword by Katie Dalebout

Author, Let It Out: A Journey Through Journaling

The first time we spoke on the phone I knew I’d met a lifelong friend.

You should come visit! Stay with us, we’ll celebrate your birthday!

We met online, but a few minutes into our first long phone conversation, Simi had already invited me (a stranger at the time) to stay with her in Columbus, Ohio.

It was the week before my 25th birthday and little did Simi know I was feeling completely lonely. Starved for community and actually pretty starved for nourishment since I’d been excessively dieting for years, I said yes. The trip from my home state of Michigan to Columbus, Ohio was almost five hours. Not a super long road trip, but the longest I’d ever driven alone.

I didn’t tell my mom I was going until the night before when I realized she’d see my travels on Instagram. I knew her reaction would be something along the lines of, You’re driving alone five hours to stay with your ‘friend’ you met online? Sim … what? And her husband? Do you even know these people? Her understandable trepidation made me feel even more anxious as I packed up my overnight bag, downloaded hours of audiobooks, and picked up snacks.

When I arrived, Simi and her dogs met me in the backyard and every ounce of hesitation dissipated instantly. Simi was magnetic, inviting, warm, and made me laugh instantly. She made me feel so cozy that I told her everything about my life, from the breakup I was still hung up on to my deep lingering issues with food and my body. Simi not only listened but truly heard me, made me feel seen, related to me, and gave me the non-judgemental advice I needed.

That weekend ended up being profound for me in a couple of ways. Not only did I spark a new friendship with Simi, but simply by spending time with her I gained clarity on how I wanted my life to unfold. I admired the relationships, career, community, and home she’d built for herself. Above all, I deeply admired the nourishing relationship she modeled with food, movement, her body, and herself. At the time I was struggling to find my footing in all of the above.

That weekend I ate, drank, and laughed more than I had in a long time. For the first time I wasn’t obsessing about what or how much I was eating. I simply followed Simi’s intuitive lead and enjoyed food. I have no idea if she knows how profound that weekend was in healing my relationship with food and myself, but I’ll never forget what a turning point it was for me.

They say you become the sum of the people you surround yourself with. I wanted to be near Simi, her friends, and her family, so I escaped my life in Michigan and made the journey to Columbus as often as I could. I even plotted moving there so I could insert myself into Simi’s life, where I knew I’d be included.

Ultimately, I realized this would be cutting the line. Simi created the life she’d dreamed of with trial and error, time, and experience (which you’ll read all about in this book). It took her years to curate her community, cozy home, meritorious marriage, and most importantly the relationship with herself that I admire most. I gave up my dream of simply inserting myself into Simi’s life and instead worked on creating an admirable life of my own.

Ever since that first weekend meeting Simi, she has become one of the most significant people in my life. Beyond being a powerful example for me, she’s the most supportive friend I have. A good friend braids your hair. A great friend flies across the country pregnant to be at your book launch.

When my book was released, Simi launched into help mode even though she was super pregnant and stricken with terrible nausea. It didn’t stop her from flying to New York City with extreme flight delays to stay in a tiny hotel room with me the night my book came out. During my launch party in a crowded organic cafe in the West Village, she stood up on a table and announced that I had something to say because she knew I’d be too shy to do it myself (and regret it if I didn’t).

This is just one example of what you’re dealing with when it comes to the level of kindness and empathy in the author of this book that you’re about to read. In the years we’ve been friends, she’s supported me, loved me, and talked to me for hours about everything from ex-boyfriends to new boyfriends to hating my body to learning to love my body. She’s listened, let me cry, and made me laugh ... whatever I needed.

I’m not telling you this to brag about our friendship, but so you truly get who she is. The type of person everyone wants to be around. And when you’re around her, you want to snuggle up to her and gush because she’s incredibly empathetic, present, relatable, and funny (oh, and has the best laugh in the universe).

The good news is you’ll get to experience all of her in the pages of this book (except her laugh, which can often be heard in her Instagram stories). Reading this book, I felt the same coziness I feel when I’m actually around Simi. This book is the inside of her brain poured out onto the pages. Simi’s experience coaching and mentoring, commitment to self-awareness and growth, creativity, and willingness to be vulnerable are what make this book exceptional.

I’m not just saying this because she’s my best friend, I truly loved reading it. Meanwhile, it took me forever to start writing this foreword. Not because I didn’t want to (I was honored she asked me), but because I didn’t want to let her down ...I wanted it to be perfect.

Then I read Simi’s intro, which you’re about to read, too. It took me off the hook. It reminded me that I didn’t have to make something perfect for this person I love and admire so much. I just needed to make something real because that’s the thing Simi has taught me most in our years of friendship: Real is better than perfect.

So, congratulations on buying this book. I’m so happy to get to share my best friend with you.

— Katie Dalebout

Author, Let It Out: A Journey Through Journaling

A Note on Writing This Book and the Lesson I Had to Learn (Again)

Writing this book brought up things I wasn’t expecting.

I had planned to write a book about breaking free from the prison of perfectionism. I was going to share 10 lessons that taught me to stop freaking the eff out about everything from food to body image to career to love to ... yeah, basically everything. I had worked through so much of my personal crap that I (naively) expected this book to just flow out of me.

I was going to write a perfect book. A perfect book about no longer needing to be perfect. The irony of this was lost on me.

For months, every time I sat down at my laptop, I was met with paralysis. I couldn’t write.

For months, I watched the blinking little line on the gigantic blank page with terror. It taunted me!

For months, I didn’t know words. I didn’t know thoughts. I didn’t know anything!

At first I blamed my lack of progress on the sheer size of the project. Oh, it must be that this book is so big that it’s overwhelming me.

Then I blamed it on having my son, Alyosha. Before Osh, I could write anytime I wanted to! I could sit down when the mood was right and then all the perfect words would just come right out. Now, I can only sit down at certain times and they just aren’t good times to write, I guess.

But plenty of people write books and plenty of people have babies. And, eventually, I got annoyed with my own excuses.

I sat down with myself to get to the bottom of it.

What’s really going on here, Simi?

I was freaking the eff out. I was scared out of my mind. Scared that the book wouldn’t be perfect.

The voice inside yelled, WRITE IT PERFECTLY! WRITE SOMETHING AMAZING! MAKE OPRAH PROUD!

I mean, give a girl one publishing package and it goes straight to her Oprah-loving mind.

When I tried to write that perfect book, I couldn’t. And the blank pages reminded me that there are no such things as perfect books. Or perfect words. Or perfect lessons. Or perfect people (other than Oprah).

I re-learned that perfectionism is its own form of torture that makes even life’s most awesome experiences feel like failures.

I had already learned this lesson about food and my body and travel and true love and pregnancy and labor and motherhood and friendship and curly hair. I guess I just needed to learn it about book writing, too.

So, rather than fail at writing something perfect, I decided to write something real.

I used to freak out all the time about food and my body and not being in control and not being good enough. I freak out a lot less now. And that’s what this book is really about.

It’s about my stories. Messy stories about what I’ve felt