I’m an extremist. I understand that now. I’m a perfectionist who thinks things (myself included) are either perfect or terrible, and if I’m not perfect than I must be shit.
I am unlearning that dichotomy.
As a student, I’d claim I failed an exam if I landed a C. I thought I wasn’t a good English student because I always got an A- on my report card. My metrics were ridiculous then and can still be from time to time.
But I am not my worst mistakes. And okay is OKAY, and “okay” doesn’t mean PERFECT. It’s hard to break that patterning but it is VITAL.
One of my biggest fears is passing on my perfectionism and extremism to my child. I see her rip up a drawing if she makes a mistake and it’s a shock to my system.
I’ve tried to use my past methods to break free from this lifelong, self-built prison, but it turns out the tools I used to make this prison will not help me escape it. I need a different toolkit.
I’ve tried to muscle my way through it, to discipline my way through it, to push, grind, write, analyze, discuss my way through it. And I haven’t gotten very far. After years of smashing brick after brick against the walls around me, I finally see that there’s a door. Rusted shut, yes, and painted over and over and over again but there it is. My way out. If I’m brave enough to try. If I value myself enough to know I deserve sunshine.
And that door was not the fortress gate I’d imagined, I didn’t even have to kick it down. I just needed the courage to push a little and it gave way. But how to find the guts to step out, beyond the familiar walls, into the greater world.
So here I stand, squinting in the light, confused by all the noise around me, completely overwhelmed by the vastness and insignificance of it all. The living contradiction that used to baffle me. And I think of the lessons I have yet to learn. The gifts people have given me that I haven’t quite opened yet.
My Dad told me never to turn my back on the ocean. But I stand here, facing away from it, wondering why I’m getting knocked over, why my mouth is full of sand. Why why why, when what I need to do is turn around and witness the strength and the power and the glory of the ocean. To see it come at me and step back if I need to, or roll up my pants, or run toward it and dive in. But first I have to face it– a power greater than myself. Something beyond my control. Something affected by the moon itself.
The ocean can hold me, the ocean can destroy me, the ocean carries life and mystery and power and history. The ocean is so much greater than me and yet we are both here, on this tiny and immense planet. We both grew out of the nothingness.
I remember the ocean and I feel less alone. I re-size myself and can recalibrate my expectations. When I turned by back to the ocean, I was turning away from myself. I was afraid to admit my powerlessness. I want to be mighty. And in my own way, I am. But the ocean is bigger. Our planet, our solar system, our galaxy, the cosmos are so much bigger. And for once that doesn’t feel diminutive. It doesn’t make me feel small because they are infinite and they contain me. I am part of the Everything. And that is enough.
Pretty Good Ugly 