Accepting imperfect or not my best

Something I learned:

I already knew this in a roundabout kind of way, but obvious statements by someone with authority and expertise inform me that I really don't know these things deep inside.  

Today, the obvious statement that came as a bit of a revelation was this: You cannot be the perfect wife, the perfect teacher, the perfect Mom, the perfect student, the perfect anything.  You have to be able to let things go.  When the laundry is piled up and your kids are demanding your attention and your husband needs your help fixing the sink in the kitchen, you have to be able to say "I can't handle this right now.  I'm going to go take some time for myself and then I'll come back and deal with it."  

I have not really practiced this faithfully, and I am a new wife (one year in 10 days) and still trying to be what I see as the perfect wife.  I have to let this go, because it is not going to happen this year.  I think I will have an even harder time letting go and abandoning chaos that is life to gain some space for me when I have kids.  I am mostly concerned about at home, though, not as much at work, but the whole work thing affects home life.  This next year may prove to be the hardest at that because I have been practicing as an overachieving student my whole life.  It is harder for me to tell myself, "OK, I don't have time to do my best, I just have to fill the square," (which you have to do in school sometimes, just fill the square) about school assignments than it is for me to try my best.  But I will not have the luxury of enough time to always do my best work at schoolwork.  Sorry profs, but that is the way it is.

But the obvious statement, "You just have to let the idea of perfect go.  Let things go," is somewhat of a new idea, though I have heard about letting things go to move on from emotional distress, being the sensitive person I am.  Somehow, I have to figure out how to let go of loading the dishwasher a certain way and planning our weekly menu perfectly and sticking to it and not turning in my best work so that I can get the sleep I need to be healthy and the most productive person I can be, or I will not make it over the 5-year teaching career hump, much less through the whole kid-raising thing when that comes around.  I will try.