Skip to main content

The Irony of Perfectionism




All or nothing.

Black or white.

If it can not be done 100% perfectly than it will not be done.  Period.

I crave organization.  I need things to be tidy, in place, neat… clean.  But I am overwhelmed.  I am tired.  I am in over my head.

Sitting on the floor while my back is being warmed by the fire, I feel safe.  The heat from the flames envelopes me and gives me a sense of calm and peace as I write and the words effortlessly flow from my mind to the page.  At this moment, this sweet divine moment everything seems right… seems perfect.  But my eyes lift from the page and something small and white distracts me.  As my eyes focus more closely on the object I notice another and then another… tiny white delicate pieces of dog hair scattered randomly and haphazardly on the top of my dark pants like miniature needles threatening, jetting straight out into the air.  Soldiers standing at attention.  Flags of imperfection. 

I am a failure.

Small, tiny voice, somewhere inside of me.  I have yet to find the exact spot that this nameless, faceless, person in the first resides within me, but it is there.  It has a flat, toneless voice, void of expression, almost a whisper… but make no mistake, it is there.

Moving from the distraction of dog hair, my eyes scan the thick, plush, gray shag rug as they stop at the piles of books scattered in a semi-circle around me.  Yet another rim of unconsciensously built protection.  Fire to warm me from behind and books built into a stone-wall fortress, a barrier between me and the rest of my house… the rest of my life.

Various titles that promise to get my house organized and clean but also manage to appeal to my deeper sensabilities like “Cleaning and the Meaning of Life” irony… once again, that I have brought more stuff into my house, added more clutter to discover the elusive clean.  Clean=perfect, perfect=love.  How could anyone not love something, more importantly someone that is perfect.

Writing books, Bible studies, homework pages from the kids, two different calendars, a gym schedule, a book promising my kids will learn how to read better, faster in 100 easy lessons, smiley face and butterfly stickers for encouragement… all scattered about me.  Waiting for me, calling to me… to make me perfect.

Really?  You’re crazy and to top that off you are lazy, a bad mom and you are fat.

The voice.  Stronger this time.  Firmer.  Demanding attention.

Big sigh… you are probably right.  Resolved, however, to quiet the voice, as I have yet to find the path to complete silence, I move towards action.  I create neat little piles.  Eight piles, by subject, four on each side.  Nice balance.  Even.  Even is a form of perfect.  But still… not perfect.  All or nothing…

I am overwhelmed, in over my head and I am tired, so very tired. 
So for today…
I choose nothing.
If it can not be done 100% perfectly than it will not be done. Period.

... More to come! Excerpts taken from book I am writing:

After They Leave, Who Will Love Me?
A Memoir of struggle to find love after adoption, divorce and death




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Am With You

...This poem was inspired by the Bible Study I'm in, covering the Book of Deuteronomy...  I am in a desert. I have lost my way. Oh Lord, speak to me... I need to hear you today! Remind me you are here. ...You've brought me this way. You have more for me! I need to hear you say... "You too have a Promised Land! Just look at my hand... see? Lean into my arms, gaze at my plans... Let Me set you free! Though your lost in a desert... Though you've lost your way... I am with you here, my child... I am with you today!" ~Carole A. Smith 10/3/12
4 comments
Read more

This Can’t Be You…

I have been attending my Christian Writing/Editing Group bi-weekly for roughly two years now.   For the same amount of time I have been slowly but surely chipping away on my first book, a Memoir.   Some of the chapters are extremely telling and memories that I don’t really want to remember let alone share with others.    But they are my stories and they need to be told… so the reader can know me, relate to me and hopefully heal with me.   I read one of those uncomfortable chapters last week aloud in my group.   Chapter 3 - which should give you a pretty good idea about how long I have been holding this one back.   I have been waiting until I feel safe.   I have been waiting to see if my writing is “good enough”.   I have been waiting for someone to tell me to stop writing because it’s not good, so I don’t have to read the hard ones.   But this hasn’t happened.   So I keep writing, I keep attending and I keep reading. Tod...
4 comments
Read more

The Power of a Mother's Love

~ You held me within you. I was from you -of you -a part of you. But the day I came into this world, you gave me to the world. You left me… to make me better. But you left me to wonder of a mother’s love …and of my worth. ~ October 21, 1971.   I was born to a woman I wouldn’t meet again until I was 33, because the day I was born she gave me away. Although I do not remember anything about my biological mother, I am convinced my psyche must have been deeply wounded as a newborn.   After I found her, she revealed to me the social worker let her hold me one time in secret, as any direct contact between the mother and the child being given up was strictly forbidden by the nuns who dually served as the nurses in the hospital maternity ward.   I can feel, in my soul, the gut-wrenching sadness of holding her baby for the first and last time all at once.   I can feel, on my face, her hot tears, anointing me with her pain.   I can h...
3 comments
Read more