The Problem With Perfect

I've been hard on myself lately.  Really hard.  It's not anything new.  I feel it creeping up, the pressure, and I know I need to go easier, softer, that there is no prize for perfection.  But still.  The problem with being a perfectionist, type-A, whatever the label, is that the goal you are pushing so hard for doesn't exist.  It's an illusion created in your mind that ignites an inner critic that is impossible to please.  Being enough is never enough.  Give your 3 year-old a donut on the way to school?  Really should be more careful with her health.  Inviting friends over for dinner?  The state of this house is an embarrassment.  Last minute dinner with your husband?  As if you should really be seen in public looking the way you do right now.

I spent the ride to the apple orchard today listening to the unrelenting internal dialogue.  Waves of everything I do wrong washing away everything I do right.

That inner critic is at once like nails on a chalk board and a familiar friend.  I can't anymore turn it off as I could change my eye color.  It's a part of who I am, maybe not my best part, but still a big one, and if there is one thing I am learning in this life, it's that ignoring any part of yourself, diminishing your parts and your make up, serves no purpose.  Learning to love yourself means seeing yourself stripped bare and loving the messy, broken parts with the same intensity instilled in the love offered to the easier, softer ones.  Maybe even with more intensity.  Because forgiving inwards holds the same amount of grace as forgiving outwards.

I can't stop the critique,  I'm not really even sure I know how to make my inner voice softer, kinder.  It's a work in progress, like every other part of learning and growing.  I know I don't want my girls to hear their inner voice rise to the pitch of perfectionism.  I know I can't guide them to soft voices with a narrative riddled with self-loathing and judgement for failing to make an impossible mark.  It's hard to shake it off and get back to being present in my own life, their lives.

I'm learning.  I know that the best way forward sometimes is simply to show up, and keep doing, keep creating, keep loving.  Eventually, the loving always quiets the critic.  Loving, like laughter, heals.  Giving honest love and accepting it back only happens in the absolute absence of perfection.  I'm not there yet, but I am pushing forward past the illusion, to the soft, yielding place where the critics fall silent.  I watched my babies run through the orchard today, selecting their fruit with no weight given towards perfection.  Smooth, perfect skins never offering the guarantee of sweet fruit.