I'd messed up big time.
James was angry. Steaming angry. If I dared to raise my eyes to meet his, I was sure I'd see smoke billowing out of his ears.
He stomped out of the room to cool off as I fell into a nearby chair and dropped my head into my hands. How could I have screwed up so badly?
It was our first trip as a married couple and we were headed to Kauai. James had entrusted me with the itinerary (fateful decision!) and the day before we left, he checked in with me a few times. "Our flight leaves at four pm, right?" I nodded confidently each time, and we made plans to work out in the morning, have lunch, finish some last-minute packing, and then make our leisurely way to the airport later that afternoon.
The next morning, I woke up to a flurry of notifications from United.
Your flight will be boarding soon.
Your flight is boarding.
Last call before the gate closes.
With shaking hands, I opened our confirmation e-mail to find that NO, our flight had already departed at 9:40 am. To this day, I can't explain where I'd gotten 4 pm from.
Needless to say, James was upset. Some pillows might've been thrown and screamed into. We called the airlines and managed to rebook another flight for the next day. But then, poor weather made us miss a layover and we had to spend another day overnight in Dallas. By the end, we'd lost two days of our vacation and not only forewent the cost of both nights at our nonrefundable hotel, but we'd had to pay more rebooking fees on top of it all.
When we finally arrived in Kauai, we actually ended up having a great time. But my royal screw up was always lurking in the back of my mind, reminding me that we could have had an even better time were it not for my Swiss cheese brain.
A week later, when we got home and regaled our friends with tales of all our travel snafus, they turned to me with mouths agape.
"JANE? You messed up the times? But how? You're always so organized!"
Appearances can be so deceiving.
It's often been bewildering to hear the way people speak of me. Based on what I've heard, it seems I give off the impression of someone who is organized, fastidious, and Generally On Top of Things.
For friends who know me, would it surprise you to know these were only coping mechanisms? I promise you - it's a clever front for all the mad chaos underneath. If I were to open the hood of my brain and allow you a sneak peek, you'd find a wild mind with tangled yarns of thought, scrabbled to-lists all askew, and congested highways of constant ponderings and wonderings. I'm sure if I ever submitted my brain for a proper scan, screens would light up like fireworks.
Because I have a hyperactive brain.
I didn't know to call it that until a few friends with proper diagnoses - some medicated, some not - shared openly and transparently about what it was like to live with their brains.
As I listened, there were too many 'What? But that's me!' moments for me to ignore.
For as long as I can remember, it's been perfectly natural for me to hold space for several simultaneous streams of thought in any given moment. Year after year, teachers scribbled the same remarks into my report cards. Jane is quiet. Jane is shy. Jane tends to be reserved.
Little did my teachers know I was just as distractible as all the other miscreants in the class; I was just better at hiding it. I still have vivid memories of sitting at my seat with my chin propped in my hands, staring in the general direction of the chalkboard but wondering all kinds of silliness.
Why is Miss Farrell so angry today?
What would we play at recess today?
Where did Emily get those cute erasers?
Why does Leon always have a stain down the front of his shirt?
I wonder if they'll have popsicles at lunch today.
Should I get grape or cherry?
In a class of thirty-plus students, it was probably easy for teachers to mistake my quiet inattention as focus.
But my compliance was my saving grace. I hated getting into trouble, so I found ways to get by. I practiced my handwriting, day in and day out, so that I'd never get pulled for bad penmanship (something for which we actually got graded when I was in elementary school). I learned to make lists and keep a neat desk space so I could keep track of all my belongings. I found ways to put my mental pedal to the metal so I could then reward myself with plenty of time to let my mind wander while everyone else finished. In a time before learning specialists, IEPs, ILPs, and focus medication, I self-strategized my wild brain into buckling down and getting things done.
It wasn't long before I swung in the complete opposite direction. I strove to become Miss Perfect.
I'm not sure that a hyperactive mind and perfectionism are a common blend in most people, but it's been my life's journey for a long while. I've often imagined my brain as a Golden Snitch, struggling to fly away while I kept it wrapped - imprisoned, even - under a cage of strict discipline. I became a control freak, needing to have things done just right.
When James and I first got married, my poor new husband bore the brunt of my perfectionism. I needled and wheedled over how I needed things done in the house, down to how my socks were folded. My own organizer needed to be organized, with sections, color coding, and perfect penmanship on every page. I once used white-out on an entire to do list and rewrote it, just because I didn't like the way it turned out.
Writing all this now makes me cringe. Clearly, these weren't coping methods anymore; this was crazed compulsivity. But it felt good to be in control and avoid the trouble and the mistakes that would happen if I just let my brain be. When I let myself go, things would always go wrong. I lost things, forgot meetings, and made mistakes. It felt far better to become Miss Neurotic than to miss flights.
It also wasn't long before perfectionism crept perniciously into more and more areas of my life. There was nothing I could do about my brain, but I could sure try to keep things running smoothly on the external front. I made lists. Oh, did I make lists. Every morning, I drank more than five cups of coffee - sometimes switching to caffeine pills later - so I could successfully move through a day. I dieted fastidiously and punished myself with non-eating days if my weight crept up past a certain threshold. The conservative church I attended in my twenties required head coverings for women in worship, so when I walked in one morning and realized I hadn't brought it with me, I quietly walked back out of church and drove the hour and a half home. Far be it from me to step foot in God's house unprepared.
In spite of all my best efforts, I made mistakes. Tons of them. I'm sure it shocks you to know that I couldn't fulfill my life's dream of becoming a high-functioning humanoid. The missed flight to Hawaii was only one bloop in a sea of bloopers.
Of course, that's normal. To err is human, as they say. But I spent decades beating myself up every time I felt I fell short.
Until I started seeing students who were just like me.
Some of them were quiet about it, shyly asking for new sheets of paper because they'd "messed up on their old paper." Others were more outspoken - vehement, even.
Last year, a student hated her drawing of a millipede and wanted a new recording sheet. When I encouraged her to use the other side of the paper, she shook her head vehemently. "I can still see the marks through the paper," Ophelia* hissed, near tears now.
An alarming number of my students hated failing. Even with tasks that required multiple cycles of planning, building, and rebuilding, too many of my young scientists would become frustrated and angry about not getting it right their first try. There were tears and tantrums as children struggled...to struggle. One student crawled under a table, huffing with arms crossed over his chest, and refused to return to the building his team was working on.
"It keeps breaking!" he sobbed as I crawled underneath to sit with him.
As I coached student after student to appreciate failures as opportunities for growth, my inner conscience prickled more urgently. How could I teach students to embrace their messes when I strove to be so fastidious with my own work? What business did I have telling them to appreciate failures, when I sat in bed, night after night, mentally berating myself for errors from decades past?
How could I tell children to embrace the strengths of their own brains when I spent so much time keeping mine shut from the world?
This isn't a happy ending post, where I tell you that I'm now healed of it all and that I no longer care what anyone thinks of me.
I still fight to focus on tasks while my mind wants to go haywire. I still scramble to scrub and screen my bloopers, lest anyone on my blog or social media catch me in my slop.
Writing this very post, in fact, has taken the better part of a month - one, because I get so distracted, but two, because it's so very hard to tell you all that I'm not really all that put together.
But I share this because if there's even one person out there who sees themself within these words, I want you to know I'm right there with you.
If you're the parent or guardian of a young perfectionist -
Be aware of your praise. Are they only hearing you clap and cheer when they score the goals, ace the test, or do what's right? Children are bound to mess up, and it's important that we notice and care, even when their efforts are clumsy. Through your words and affirmations, remind them that progress is just as important as the end product. Model healthy mess ups, even when it doesn't seem like they're watching. It might feel easy to stew or self-criticize when things go wrong, but children take their cues from adults. These are precious opportunities to show them how to start over, try again, or let things go.
If you're friends with or married to a perfectionist -
All humans love compliments. It's feels good to know when we're doing well. But for perfectionists, it's hard when the compliments and gratitudes come only when we're on top of things. It only feeds the machine and makes us believe our worth is in our faultless work. Instead, notice the imperfect efforts and help us find the silver linings in our mistakes; some of us have a hard time finding them on our own. This year, I've become a newbie at lots of things - speaking French, drawing, writing, math - so I make tons of mistakes. I'm not sure what I'd do without James' constant reminders.
"You did something new!" he always says. "That's what's most worth it."
Perfectionists need people like that.
If you're a perfectionist -
You deserve far, far more grace than you allow yourself. I can't really tell you how to make that happen because I'm still learning it myself. But when I look at the people I admire most, the people who endear me most easily, and the folks who seem to be enjoying life most, they're the ones who laugh when they fall. Or the ones who rib themselves for how silly they are. I never really felt that kind of joy on the road toward becoming perfect, and I'm guessing you don't either. So find the people who hold up faithful mirrors, who remind you that you're much more than a collection of mistakes - be it friends, family, parishioners, or therapists. Search for the nuggets of helpful feedback when there are mess ups (What went wrong there? How can I avoid that next time?).
And most of all, remember, sometimes life gets screwy. But it's things that get messed up; not you.
