I know you think you’re a failure, but you’re not.
I know you think you’re fat, but you’re not.
Your reality, the one you’re living right now, is perceptive. What you see as truth is really nothing more than a shadow of fact, one that is sifted through the filters of your mind and heart.
In other words, your life is what it is because you choose to see it that way.
(don’t get mad and quit. keep reading.)Read More
Let’s say your life, upon completion, ends up looking something like this.
[Yes, that’s a cake.]
…mmmmm….cake….
Our lives, no matter how we choose to live them, are an addition of experiences, choices, actions, intentions, people, and feelings. Like ingredients, we mix these things together to create something we hope turns out wonderful.
Your life is a cake, and you are the baker.
So… I’m kind of a perfectionist.
[I can hear the people who know me best, snorting and laughing. My brother’s guffaws are loudest. JUST SHUSH, BROTHER. I KNOW.]
Really though, JUST KIND OF. I’m kind of a perfectionist.
My brother’s laughter is not without warrant. I used to be an over-the-top, anal retentive, angry, bossy, OCD, anxiety ridden, control freak perfectionist. I’m not anymore. [Seriously guys, really.]
After years and years of driving myself into the dirt, setting personal goals to deliver the world and then feeling like a failure if I didn’t OVERdeliver the whole effing universe, hating myself for never living up to what I could be instead of what I AM, I got tired of it.
Sure, there are still things that I get clenchy about.
Like making my bed. I can go from zero to bitchface in the same amount of time it takes a small child to jump into my halfway-made bed, which (I have found) is less than one second. I like straight, tight sheets and covers, pillows plumped just right, cases clean and all facing the same direction. Once the bed is made I don’t expect it to stay that way, but while I’m making it, BACK OFF.
I like my closet arranged “just so.” I arrange all the shirts on matching hangers, facing the same direction, in order of sleeve length and sub-categorized by color, partially because it makes me happy, but also because I can tell simply by looking which shirts are in the laundry, and what color laundry needs to be done next.
July 19.
It’s tough to tell by looking at me, but I am half Japanese.
Most of the time, people can tell I’m “something else.” I don’t look Japanese, but I don’t look particularly Caucasian, either. As a teen and in my early twenties, the go-to-guess of my heritage was Native American. Women generally didn’t ask me why I looked the way I did (it doesn’t seem we ask each other such questions, out of intelligence, respect, or fear of comparison), but men did.
“Hey, you look like Pocahontas. Are you Indian or something?”
Classy.
And tactful, right?
**rolling eyes**
My answer to their boorish question: “Yeah. “Or something.””
Despite the occasional rudeness and clumsy question, I have never been offended when people ask “what are you.” We were raised with great pride in our culture. We wore kimonos and danced Obon. I learned to eat with chopsticks before I learned to use a fork. I make sushi as easily as I make a sandwich. I learned to write and speak Japanese (although I’m terribly out of practice). My lunchbox held strange treats, and I had a great deal of fun sharing them with my classmates.
As Japanese-Americans, we were encouraged to fulfill the best Japanese stereotypes. Intelligence, high level academic achievement, respect, hospitality, and honor were part of our family culture. We were encouraged to take the best part of what it meant to be Japanese, and be that. BE THAT, and be that as hard as you can. I don’t know that it was ever said out loud, but we were raised to lean into the differences that set us apart from everyone else. We were taught to stand out, stand up, and do what we were taught was right.
For the most part, an excellent lesson.
Except then I grew up, I attempted to become my own person, and I realized that neat and tidy suitcase of stereotypes, the one I unquestioningly picked up and took pride in because it was part of our culture?
It wasn’t just full of good things, there was some bad stuff in there too.Read More
Day 1.
….well, actually it’s day 3. July 3rd.
I had fully intended on starting this project on the first day in July, to run the whole month. Then we went out of town for a family reunion, then my week was full of crazy catch up because I was gone from all three jobs for two days, then yesterday I was filling out a deposit slip for work, looked up the date (because I had no idea what day it was), and it said “July 2.”
[“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.”]
That’s usually how it is with me. GREAT INTENTIONS. Pretty great planning. Moderately acceptable execution.
Frequently drops the ball.
As an OCD-control-freak-overachiever-perfectionist, that last part grieves me.
The perfectionist part of me wants to spend the day today writing THREE articles, not just one. Take three pictures, post three blogs, back date the first two. Six hours later, done and done. I’d have started on the first (even if I hadn’t), I’d be COMPLETE, the project would be whole, and when it was all over I’d have one completely intact, just-right, no-holes, no missing parts blog project. My FIRST blog project, and it would be a roaring success.
…but then I got to thinking.
“Isn’t that expectation of perfection the problem I’ve got with my body in the first place?”Read More
I consider myself to be an expert-level goal setter.
This makes me sound arrogant and kind of like an asshole, but it’s true.
I’m not super good at a lot of stuff. I can’t dance to save my life. I can’t twerk (my kids groan when I try, and I threw my back out once). I can’t sing well, so I make up for lack of pitch with volume. I can’t lie without twitching and folding (horrible at poker), I don’t play a musical instrument, I don’t sit still long enough to tolerate knitting, cross stitch, or crochet.
GOALS, though. I can do goals.
As a go-big-or-go-home kind of person, I LIKE goals. Goals get me efficiently where I want to go. I like BIG goals. I like setting a goal that makes me a little bit afraid, because I know I’m going to have to dig deep to crush it. I have a pretty active and brilliant imagination, so the goals I come up with in my head are quite detailed.
And, as far as execution goes, I almost always hit the goals I set for myself. I can’t remember the last time I set a goal and didn’t accomplish it. My cycle of success is (finally) established, and I don’t fail often.
EXCEPT WITH WEIGHT LOSS.Read More
Today I was at the grocery store, tasked with the purchase of candy for my kids’ candy bucket. We don’t keep a lot of sugar in the house, just a small, 2 quart container full of their favorite treats, but it is where they go to pick their dessert and the occasional sweet reward. The bucket holds caramels, mints, tootsie rolls, and random, fun size bars. (Although my idea of fun is way, way, one million times bigger, it works for the kids’ tiny bodies.)
Our candy bucket was getting low, and so I promised them some more variety. “Next time I’m at the store I’ll check.”
As I entered the candy aisle at the grocery store, I was feeling pretty good. In fact, I felt almost nothing. I was strong and sound of mind and spirit, I wasn’t hungry (always a plus), and I looked for a bag of candy like it was a carton of eggs. No emotion, no dilemma, no chaos.
Then I saw the stupid cinnamon bears.
DAMNIT.
In my life, I have set goals no less than one hundred thousand times.
That sounds like an exaggeration, but I’m not kidding. One hundred thousand times. At least 33 years, times 365 days, times 10 goals a day. That’s at least 122,275 goals in my life. (and yes, i did the math. i heart math.)
I was born a chronic overachiever perfectionist. And, like most overachiever perfectionists, goal setting is in my nature. I set goals for EVERYTHING. How much I’m going to eat, and by when. How much I’m going to weigh, and by when. How many workouts this week, and how much weight for each exercise. How many books I’ll read this month, and what kind of books, and how many words. What classes I’ll be able to take. What grades I’ll get in those classes. What time I’ll get to bed. When I’ll get up. What time the kids will do which things. What I’ll do for a job next year, and how much I’ll make, and when I’ll get my next promotion, and what tasks I’ll complete by when in order to get it.
For most (normal, not control freak, not obsessive) people, that probably sounds exhausting.
To be honest, sometimes even for me it IS exhausting, but it’s what I do. I love goals. I live for and through my goals.
Read More
I wonder if Eve thought she was fat.
You know, THE Eve. Adam’s love, the woman that lived in the Garden of Eden. THAT Eve. The first woman around, the first woman created. I wonder if she thought she was fat.
Regardless of your religious stance, whether you believe the story to be God breathed or purely fiction, take a minute to think about it. I can see it perfectly in my head.
Eve wakes up for the first time, freshly formed from Adam’s rib, formed by the hand of God Himself, takes her first breath of God-filled air, looks down at her body, and says, “HOLY HIPS, GOD. WTF. Looook at how fat I am. And this pudge. (grabs skin around middle) I am SO ANGRY. THIS is what you dealt me? I could have been ANY SHAPE, and THIS is the one you pick. ARE YOU BLIND? LOOK AT ME. No one in the world is ever going to want me, I’m DISGUSTING. You might as well name me the same as that thing over there. (points to brand new cow) (looks around, sees Adam) Hey you, what’s your name? Adam? Hey, Adam, do you think these leaves make me look fat?”
[And yes, I know the leaves came later, but you get my point.]
In my mind I can see Eve, acting out the words and thoughts I’ve had with regard to myself and my body, and I can’t stop shaking my head.
I just don’t think she’d do that.
Read More
This morning as I was herding kids out the door to catch the bus, the eight year old burst into tears.
“MOMMY!”
I turned my head to look, and she held out toward me her homework folder. The one that comes home Monday, and is turned in FIRST THING Tuesday morning. The one that was full of not-even-started, not-finished homework. The one I asked about last night, “did you get your homework done,” and was told “yes, I read my book on the bus.”
Her BOOK was done, her worksheets were not. She just plain forgot.
TEACHABLE. MOMENT.
Read More
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