Today I am thankful that I learned to accept my short comings and be the person I know I am. I know that it seems like an odd thing to be thankful for, but really it is not.
Growing up I lived under the expectation of perfection. Anything less than perfect… perfect grades, perfect appearances, perfect behavior, perfect friends, perfect outcomes was unacceptable.
I was the perfect daughter. I smiled when I was suppose to smile. I got all the right grades. I dressed as I was expected to. I never stepped out of line. I had polite and well behaved friends. I won awards and competitions. I was not any of the things I was expected to be, but I learned very early on in my life it was better to pretend to be the happy, smart, talented daughter who had good friends and never disappointed anyone then to let the real me shine through. I played the role I was expected to play, until one day I could not pretend any more.
It took a long time for me to break the chains of perfectionism and the hold they had on me. It took me a long time after I stopped pretending to be perfect to understand what it meant to accept who I was and the faults I brought with me. I still struggle with the desire to appear perfect. When you spend so much of your life pretending to be something you are not so that others will accept you, it is hard to walk away from the acceptance. It is lonely when you walk away, some people don’t accept a person who is flawed, and some people can not forgive when they have been let down.
I am who I am. My short comings are as much a part of me as my strengths are. I am not perfect. I will never be perfect and I am okay with that. I am exactly as I should be, because I am happy with who I am. I still have my days when I feel like I have disappointed someone, where I feel like I did not live up to the ideal image that they have of me and become overwhelmed with the guilt of not being perfect… but then I remember that I owe nothing to anyone. If I am okay with how I live my life, with how I handle a situation, with how I dress, or behave or who I associate with then it does not matter what anyone else thinks.
It is easy to forget that it is okay to be a person with faults. I forget. It is okay to forget from time to time, the important part is to remember that perfection is in the eye of the beholder! Life is far less complicated and demanding once you let go of the expectations of perfection and just be who you are.
The Cave 