My 21-Year-Old Pants Are a Philosophy: A Guide to the Wabi-Sabi Lifestyle

Let’s talk about the Wabi-Sabi lifestyle—the Japan-rooted art of finding beauty in imperfection. If you’ve been on TikTok lately, you’ve seen it everywhere. It sounds very zen, doesn’t it? Like a woman in a linen robe sipping matcha in a room that contains exactly one stone and a single branch of cherry blossoms.

But let’s get real, dear reader. In this house, embracing imperfection isn’t a choice—it’s a survival tactic.

The Billion-Dollar Holes and the Aesthetic Mess

Exhibit A: my black Escada pants. These pants are 21 years old. They are officially old enough to walk into a bar and order a martini. I bought them after closing a massive deal, and in them, I felt like a billion dollars.

Today? They have two small holes.

Multiple seamstresses have looked me in the eye and said, “Ma’am, let them go.”

First of all—Ma’am? Excuse me? Nobody calls me ma’am ever. That’s my grandmother. I may have holes in my pants, but I haven’t reached “ma’am status” yet.

Second of all, I’m not letting them go.

My husband has offered to buy new ones. I could buy new ones. But instead, I wear a long shirt and keep it moving. That’s the heart of a true Wabi-Sabi lifestyle: honoring the history of the hustle… while strategically concealing the evidence.

Navigating My Favorite Home Organization Fails

People ask me, “How do you do it? Three weeks on the road, multiple cities, a toddler in tow?”

The answer is: I do it imperfectly.

My life has layers of mess, and my home organization fails are legendary:

• Creative Chaos

  This lives on my desk and next to my daughter’s bed. It’s the “I’m working while you sleep” pile. It looks like a stationery store exploded.

  
  

• Goblin Mode

  This is the “I have zero energy left” pile. Items stacked on items until we’ve created a new architectural marvel of “I’ll deal with this on Tuesday.”

  
  

• The Total Disaster

  This is our storage unit. It’s a “look at it and cry” situation. It’s where dreams (and the photo collage I promised I’d hang) go to hibernate.

Wabi-sabi isn’t a curated aesthetic. Sometimes it’s just… admitting the truth: I am a person with a life. The life is visible.

Why Embracing Imperfection Starts at the Coffee Pot

The “Perfect Version” of me would see a full dishwasher and think, I shall hand-scrub my favorite ceramic mug.

The Wabi-Sabi version of me? I’m raiding the stash of disposable “to-go” cups from the pantry. Costco, you are so very fabulous for selling me endless bags of these tiny permissions to not wash a mug. I greatly thank you.

Embracing imperfection means admitting I am not using a sponge before I’ve had caffeine. That is a task for After-Coffee Me.

Living the Imperfectly Perfect Way

My beautiful built-out closet should be a designer’s dream. Instead, I have to slam the door shut and hope the physics of “too much stuff” doesn’t win today.

And that is okay.

Normalize the slam. Normalize the long shirt over the holes. Normalize the tears and the “super stress” that comes with being a human who actually does things.

I’m not a perfect human, and I’m never going to claim to be. I’m just here—learning as I go—drinking coffee out of a paper cup in my 21-year-old pants.

Your Turn

What’s one thing in your house that would make a professional organizer faint, but makes you feel right at home?

Tell me in the comments—let’s be imperfectly perfect together.