Not at all perfect

One of the most gigantic lessons that I am learning right now (and I owe part of the journey to the fact that I'm now a mother) is that I don't have to be perfect. I have never really thought of myself of anything other than a high-achiever.... But it took the subtle, tender, and loving intervention of my husband to show me that I am more than that; I am a perfectionist.

I guess I should have seen it early on...how'd I would sometimes re-write my class notes without errors and neatly color-coded for ease of studying them later. How I would change clothes 15 times before going out with friends (no, it's not just "being a teenager"). And how I'd dump entire dinners in the trash can if they didn't taste as delicious as I had pictured them to be, ashamed to serve them to my soulmate (don't scream, you cost-conscious ladies out there!! This only happened four or five times in my nearly five years of married life).

What makes certain people (especially women) behave like this? Psychologists have studied it for years. A recently article I read said that it's estimated that as many as half of all women have perfectionistic tendencies; and to top it off, 10% are so fastidious that it leads to other disorders. This would explain, also, my teetering on the edge of eating disorders and even my brief (thank God) delve into depression a few years ago.

We women want to please our men....and our kids....and our boss....and our friends....and the supermarket clerk....and our neighbor....and our kids' teachers. We want to be all things to all people, and if we are not up to par, we'd rather hide out in a cave than to expose our weak links to others.

Yet "supermom" I am most certainly not, or even "super-wife." Nor was I "super-employee" or "super-student," though I liked to think of myself as such. There were still insecurities there, things I hoped others wouldn't catch onto, things I swept under the rug.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to have a neat appearance, a nice home, an organized car, well-kept kids, a wonderful job record. Yet if it affects one's happiness and mental well-being, it has gone too far.

I have tried to remedy this thorn in my flesh by doing several things.... One, asking God to help me. He knows I cannot do this alone. It is a personality conflict, and I am too weak to know how to repair it without His aid. Two, I have stopped trying to schedule my day to the minute. What happens when it gets off-kilter? I freak out. I rant and rave about how "there needs to be more than 24 hours in day," making the days of my loved ones more annoying and painful. And three, I am trying to help myself "let loose" a little. How?....welcome to my thought process:

So what if that piece of dry macaroni has been on the kitchen floor for 20 minutes. It can stay there till I vacuum tomorrow. So what if I didn't iron the other leg of these pants before I wore them out. Nobody will notice. So what if I have a bump in my hair when it goes into a ponytail. Only I will know. And so what if I forgot to RSVP for that party. The world will NOT fall apart. And I am NOT getting dementia at an early age. I am simply NOT PERFECT.

So today, as I write this, I am trying not to come undone. I am supposed to be running errands right now, but Gardner was sleepier than normal, so I put him down for an early morning nap. And it's thundering outside, which again hampers my plans since I'd rather not get caught in a downpour. But it's OKAY. Life will resolve itself. I can just go later. No big deal.

That felt good.