Despite all my efforts to the prove otherwise in the last 25 years, I am probably one of the least perfect, most obviously flawed people on this planet.
...and that's not a bad thing. However if you'd told me that this time last year, or maybe even last month, you wouldn't have liked my response very much.
I have spent the majority of my lifetime totally convinced that if I hide my faults and do everything within my power to avoid making even the most simple of mistakes that we as human beings make every day, that I would somehow prove to those around me and to myself that I was deserving of friendship, respect, and ultimately, love.
Only the harder I tried, the more mistakes I made and the more mistakes I made, the angrier and more despondent I got, until I reached the point where I felt like I couldn't go out and socialize with friends or people I wanted to get to know, because I could feel them noticing every blemish, every flaw, every stupid thing I ever did or said that I can't take back, no matter how badly I want to even to this day.
I had to be perfect because I thought it was the key to being accepted. Instead, it drove nearly everyone I ever cared about and loved away. That is not said to make you feel sorry for me. It's a fact, not a complaint. In the striving to reach perfection, you begin keeping people at arm's reach because you cannot bear the idea of seeing that chip on your shoulder which is spurring you on, even when you know they don't care that you're so obviously imperfect and they accept that.
And as I explained to a dear friend once in trying to defend my position, I wear my heart on my sleeve, six inches below that chip, and have done so since I was maybe 10 years-old.
It's hard for me to admit, let alone accept that my fallibility is actually a virtue and not a deterrent when it comes to the rest of the world. And some of you may ask the justifiable question of why did I bother in the first place?
I bothered because for about 10 years, from the time I was 13 until I was 23, I had it drilled in my head by people who were charged with ensuring I stayed out of trouble that under no circumstances was I allowed to make a mistake. I step out of line once, for any reason, and everything I had would be taken from me in a nanosecond. No joke. A decade of having to make sure from the time I woke up, to the time I fell asleep, I HAD to be perfect.
For a teenager, when life seems like one endless series of mistakes, that's an amazingly tall order to meet. But I tried, and when I didn't I took it out on myself so hard that I was left with virtually no self-worth or self-esteem to speak of. Even the most casual, trivial mistakes were somehow magnified in my mind to be so egregious that I assumed I would be hated by everyone around me if they knew the truth that I was incapable of being perfect.
The hardest part was when those ten years were over, those same people forgot to add one crucial instruction that I desperately needed. They never told me I could stop trying. I don't know if they thought I would just figure it out on my own or what, but I really never did. I just kept on going with that mindset of anything less is akin to complete and total failure.
That's a hard way for anyone to live, to be honest. You don't get a chance to breathe when you screw up because you immediately jump into Fixer mode and often overcompensate, thereby making things even worse because you're trying so hard to repair a mistake which to other people may be wholly inconsequential.
The worst part is looking at someone you care about so much, and knowing in your heart that if they knew half of what you know about yourself, they would turn and run away so fast that you'd never see them again. So you shield yourself and do absolutely everything you can to not let those parts of you show through, because they can't hate you if you're perfect.
I look back on that know and find myself wondering why I spent so much energy trying to be an impossibility. I'm not perfect. I can never be perfect, and for all the times I embraced those special people in my life who let me see their flaws, worts and all, I never respected or trusted them enough to let them do the same for me. It's a hard fact to accept and that loss is mine and I feel it every day.
There's a 80's song by a British band, Level 42, that I loved as a kid and once I figured out the lyrics, it became one of my favorites. The lyric is this:
But making mistakes, is a part,
of life's imperfections.
Born on the years. Is it so wrong,
to be human after all?
As I'm slowly beginning to finally understand, no....it's actually not wrong at all.
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