Perfectionism

My mom called me a perfectionist. Everything had to be right and in its place. Clothes folded correctly and all the same. My room dusted and vacuumed every week. Hair parted exactly in the center. Even when I ate, I’d eat one thing at a time so as not to mess up my plate. I still butter my toast exactly to the edge. Everything was clean, even and symmetrical. The funny thing is that it sounds extremely neurotic to me now, but when I was a kid, that was just how I was. To this day I love that about my parents. They let us each be what we were and celebrated it instead of suppressing it. (That alone is a topic for a different post.) However, it seems that according to the me now, the me then was neurotic. LOL!

I’ve learned to relax a bit over the years. I don’t have to pick up every speck of fuzz off the floor the second I see it – I waited a whole hour once. I mix up my food on my plate. I part my hair on the side. It’s not completely gone and never will be and that’s ok with me. But it doesn’t control me as much as it used to. Nowadays they call it OCD – the extreme cases, anyway. I think I liked the term perfectionism better. It sounds more human.

As I’ve matured, I see that I’m not only like that because I have a disorder. I’m now a clean freak because I appreciate the fact that I have a home and a car and clothes to clean. I take pride in maintaining that which I am fortunate enough to possess. I see the homeless people often and can only imagine how grateful many of them would be to have even the simple things I have. To be able to bathe daily, to have food in the refrigerator, to care for a pet, to choose different clothes each day – these are things we have all taken for granted at one time or another. We will almost always learn appreciation through loss of these basics. How did you feel the last time your water heater went out? Could you imagine only ever having the option of a cold shower? I did that for a week once – years ago. It was horrible. Now, every time I take a shower I still have a fleeting thought about that week and appreciate my hot water heater even more.

Take care of yourself and your life and everything in it.