Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Walking out of death

How much sense does it make that I am walking out of death and I am terrified of what that means?  I know why but it is like taking the bandage off a wound and looking without flinching.  I am still flinching.  I am still flinching, wanting to please, afraid to say anything.  Then I do and there is no happiness in it but I do it anyway.

I am going to craft a personal statement for myself.  I do not know what it will be yet.  There are many things I want to encompass.  My religious beliefs, my personal ideals, my work ethic...I am just not sure.  I know it needs to be shorter than the Declaration of Independence because I am a single person, not a fledgling country.  (I am trying to be funny here.  It usually does not translate.  Or so my girls tell me.)  But it is that.  It is my declaration of independence from the tyranny of perfectionism.  I do not have to be perfect.  That also means I do not have to please everyone all of the time.  That still makes me feel skittish.


Mainly because more than hating my perfectionism, the cancerous thought process that was eating away at my spirit, I desperately do not want to be that cranky old woman.  You know who I am talking about.  The woman so intent on having it her way, on always being right, on validating herself through that whole process.  I bet you might have met her at church.  She had something to say about your children when they were little after a service.  You probably had to take them out to the hallway and she was going to make sure that you knew you disturbed her.  Perhaps she saw you at the library and scrutinized your stack of books, eager to correct you on any wrong choices.  Maybe she was at work and felt the need to compare and criticize how you do things.  Even better, perhaps you met her in your philosophy class where she browbeat you because your beliefs because do not line up exactly with hers.  I do not want to be her so badly it is hard to say anything at times.

Above all I want to have compassion.  I want to be up front and honest but always in love, never in self-righteousness.  You know what though?  I am going to mess up.  I am going to fail spectacularly anyway.  And I have to be okay with that.  I have to realize even though I am almost forty that I am new to this life I am choosing.  I am frightened and vulnerable and I have to fight my instinct to flee all the time.  So I am asking you right now.  Forgive me.  I am new at this.

4 comments:

bbwsheep said...
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Aspiring Mom2three said...

I have been terrified for years that I will become like my mother - controlling, locked in to self, not wanting to get involved. I catch myself doing or saying something that she would do and I stop. These genetics are the festering wound that I don't want my children to experience or inherit. I so appreciate your honesty - it is refreshing - to be real and not hide behind being the person that others think we are. A hard journey.

Shawna said...

I have a similar reason for being careful in that regard. It is not healthy though when I let it go so far that I am afraid if I don't please others (or do not offend them)that I won't receive love. Then there is the whole, if I say what I think, even if I try to do it with kindness, people won't like me anymore. It is sad that my happiness used to depend on that. (Using past tense there but it isn't all gone yet!)

Shawna said...

But not my mom! Trying to stay out of trouble here! ;)