I wrote "Best of the Real" as a way to work with my ongoing struggle with perfectionism. Should I even do it if it can't be perfect? What did I do wrong? Why do I spend so much time worrying about everything? 

The song had its genesis when I was looking at a pile of letters on my desk, realizing how many were sitting there waiting for a response. (I'm big into letter-writing.) The letters were waiting for the "perfect time" for me to write back... and as I looked at them, the first line "all the letters left unwritten" came to me, and thus the song was born. 

"Best of the Real" music and lyrics by Ilona Tipp, copyright 2018 Missive Maven Music

All the letters left unwritten
All the things I’ve left unsaid
Everything I wish I’d done
Is crowding 'round my head

All the times I didn’t speak up
All the times that I misspoke
I am always dwelling on them
And I can’t let it go

I gotta find a way to release the ideal
And learn how to make the best of the real

Every day I complain away
The beauty that surrounds me
Always wanting something more
Desire, it hounds me

Sometimes I will dream of flying
My feet, they will just leave the ground
But my hands, they must be empty
I can’t fly with things holding me down

Why do I hold on to things that hold me down?
Maybe what holds me up won’t let me fly
Why do I wait to appreciate?
It’s time to make the best of the real right now

I gotta take my eyes off of the future and live in the now
Find what I need to release to fly
Pull my feet out of the past and make myself present somehow
It’s time to make the best of the real right now