For quite some time I’ve had this nudging to be more vulnerable in telling my story as I blog, and while I understand the power of that and part of me really wants to go for it, another huge part is scared spitless. Heck, I edit every blog post to death as it is. If there’s an errant comma I have to go back and fix it, and I worry about this that and the other thing that someone reading it might be hurt by or get the wrong idea from. Consequently I have writer’s block that I see as a form of constipation. So this is my first try to open up a tiny crack. Please be kind. I just have to try. It’ll be disjointed, but the next paragraph will tell why I’m making myself just let that be.
I’ve been coming smack up against my own perfectionism lately on all sides. I can’t escape looking at it. It’s exhausting me, and it’s affecting my work and relationships. I read blogs, and there other writers are, writing on the theme, as if a beam is focused on me. I hear a coworker express frustration at not being perfect, and I see myself.
It’s like I’ve decided that if people really know me, they’ll dismiss me, so I am very careful what I show. I get how false that is, how it’s just the opposite. But I’m still not free of it.
Of course if you’d come to my house you’d think I was anything but perfectionist. It only comes out to play in certain ways, but always in my own head.
I’ve always really liked James Taylor’s music. Tonight one of my Facebook friends shared a YouTube video of him singing “Fire and Rain.”
I sang along, then found myself smiling and really thankful he got sober and didn’t die from booze and drugs way back when. It would have been such a waste, and his clear eyes and talent that sits well on him speak something deep to me about hope.
My husband got sober too late, and the damage already caused by the alcohol killed him. Even before he died, it took his brilliant mind, sense of humor, warmth, wisdom and emotional presence from those of us who loved him. All that love and beauty got all mixed up with emotional isolation, flatness, manipulation, deception, and finally the loss of ability to think straight. It still makes me have a wave of nausea sometimes when I think about it, and we’re coming up on three years after his death.
Addiction is nothing to mess around with. James Taylor would say the same thing. I don’t find Lindsay Lohan or Charlie Sheen entertaining. Amy Winehouse’s death was so sad.
So now I find myself apparently addicted to trying to be perfect. Silly girl. Wouldn’t it be better to just be real? Jesus loves me just the way I am, limitations and messiness and all. Hopefully I’ll learn to, too.
“Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.”
–Leonard Cohen, in “Anthem”
Funny how hard it is for us to allow ourselves the grace we extend to others. This is a great post; thanks for risking…:-)