This is an exerpt from an essay I wrote on, well, myself I guess, in 2007...
I am a perfectionist. As a perfectionist, when I sat down to write this, my conditioning to be perfect at all things and times tempted me to open with “Webster’s Dictionary defines perfection as…” But I was too tired to look it up. I am just so tired…of…perfection. Of a constant smile on my face despite what I am feeling inside. Of a stick-straight back and squared shoulders. Of holding my head at a perfect angle. I am just…tired. I want to relax and sprawl out and get comfortable, but I fear falling off this pedestal I have forced myself up onto.
Do I really feel perfect? Was it worth it? I mean, lets be honest here. Do I really feel perfect? Do people look at me and say “Wow. She really is perfect”. Is it even about “people”? Nobody forced me up here, you know. I did the climbing myself. Each step up saying “You will never touch me! You will never judge me! Most importantly – you will never pity me my faults because I will be flawless. I will be perfect.”
I won’t lie. For a while I was pretty pumped to be up there. Every sleepless night spent studying was redeemed when I received that perfect grade. But it was never about the grade; it was the looks of admiration and envy and even frustration and self-hate on the faces of everyone around me. I was that girl. I was that girl that was in every activity. I was that girl that took Advanced Calculus as an elective. And, oh yeah, I was the girl that still found time to bring freshly baked cookies to class. I thought that was the answer. The big secret to happiness. What is happiness worth if you can’t share it with someone? Perhaps if I hadn’t isolated myself from everyone, someone might have tapped me on the shoulder and told me that my biggest imperfection was my quest for perfection.
I have recently realized that what I have always thought of as a pedestal has really been my prison. My innate ability to romanticize everything meant that this was a medieval cell high up in a tower with a huge rusted lock on a solid wood door. But when I stopped distracting myself with the décor of the place, I realized that this was the loneliest place in the whole world, and I didn’t want to be there.
I thought that meditation would help me find the key that would fit that rusted lock. That if I was just able to “do it right”, my cell would open and I would run into the world shouting “I’m free!” We are told every week in here to just stop thinking. But, since I am so perfect, and I always know what’s best, I didn’t do that. I would go into meditation, both in class and at home saying “where the f*ck is that key?!?!?” Needless to say, I didn’t find it.
There was a moment when there was a ceasefire of the civil war in my head – we’ll call it an “epiphany” because I’ve always wanted to have one– where I found an answer. My answer was this: there is no key, because there is no lock, because there is no cell keeping me apart from everyone. I put myself there, I held myself there, and only I could let myself out. All at once I was very aware of my heartbeat, and I realized that this is the answer – this is what connects me to every other person on this planet. And because I am big into visuals, I saw a web connecting everyone, and when I looked down I saw a web grow out from my own body and connect me to every other being. I felt supportive and supported and loving and loved right back…and I wasn’t tired anymore.
It was a really rough day when I realized that I wasn’t perfect, and that everyone already knew that, but it was, nothing short of glorious when I realized that I was just like everyone else.
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