Day 39: Cut the bullshit
I’ve been in a space of trying to hack my brain and figure out whats “wrong”. And by that I mean identifying the characteristics and patterns about myself that are no longer serving me or have directly contributed to my down fall. It’s like trying to solve a Rubiks Cube— and baby.. I ain’t never been able to solve one of those. As a teenager the perception of my flaws were from a single perspective and they were all physical. I didn’t have the same introspective abilities I have now (for obvious reasons). I remember when my Auntie Peggy told me I was self conscious, and said it as a matter of fact. Inside the words tore whatever image of myself I thought I was masquerading as to bits. What hurt even more was that I wasn’t as good as I thought I was with masking. Then came the insecurities. Insecurities constructed from the pursuit of the unobtainable— perfection.
It is now as I type that I officially accept that I have been a perfectionist for all my life. However, it always went undetected because I drew clear lines of separation between myself and those who claimed that word for themselves or defined themselves by it. “Im not like her at all,” thought in a judgmental tone. But the one who suffered the most judgement by my hand was myself. I have held unattainable expectations for myself across the spectrum of my life.
In my relationships with the opposite sex as much as I love love and to be in love, I shy from intimacy because true intimacy means sharing the rawness held between myself and I. I used to care more about how other perceived how I looked but that has faded some. However, one thing I have safeguarded was my image and my reputation. I never wanted anyone to be able to say anything bad about me. This has caused me to develop habits of remaining neutral (within reason of course) to avoid someone forming an opinion of me. I am non-confrontational by nature but have held judgment for woman who “can’t control their tempers”. I used to always judge other woman and put myself on a pedestal where they fell short. Even if I didn’t realize thats what I was doing, thoughts in the same area as “couldn’t be me” were in abundance. I’ve spread the number of sex partners I’ve had out and kept the number below a certain figure intentionally to prevent labels from being put on me. Morgan has had me under lock and key with expectations and quite frankly its exhausting. And it only leads to a cycle of disappointment and questioning everything I thought I knew about myself followed by another surge of will for change and the repeat.
I have been stuck in a loop of sorts. I make absolute statements over myself and declare I’m done with something in one moment and as that fire dulls down I’m right back where I started. I can’t say how many times I’ve declared that I was done smoking, never gonna talk to (whichever) him again, done eating ___. It’s time for me to just accept that I am not a cold turkey type of person. It’s time for me to accept that I have put unrealistic expectations on myself and have withheld grace, love and understanding when I fall short. Boundaries are golden and discipline is a treasure. For years I haven’t been able to set them or just accepted that I had no discipline. But in fact that isn’t true. I have been out of sync because the decisions of change have not been made in alignment and understanding within my whole being. No full body understanding of why I am doing something but instead shame and judgement followed by yet another snap decision for change. God’s grace is sufficient for a reason— it takes a us a minute to get it right and that is OKAY.
