Changing the Narrative

I am a perfectionist. I beat myself up for jobs not executed perfectly. From work to relationships, every failure is a vast canyon of defeat from which I shall never recover.

Geeeezus. 

Ok, and I've always been a bit dramatic about these things. But I'm not the only one! I know loads of people who regard losses or failures as an irreversible blemish upon who they are as people! 

Over the last month, a big part of my job as bar manager was to launch a new cocktail menu. I've been at this bar manager job for about 2 months, and it was important to me that I not disappoint anyone.

In an attempt to do everything perfectly, I entered into a stress tornado, of my own conscious choosing. Everyone around me knew I was doing it. I talked about it constantly. I wore it on my face. I won't pretend to know what my co-workers and friends really thought about it. In retrospect, I can tell you that I put far greater energy into stressing than into the actual work that needed to be done. 

I'd made my to-do lists and damn near everything was ready. It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn good. 

And now that it's all done, and I'm a bit sick, and really tired, I can't figure out the point of the stressing. I think it was partly fear rising up in me that I'm not capable of much (yeesh!). I think it was partly to show everyone how hard I was working. Because that's a point of pride for me. 

And I thought about this further:

Am I a person who works as much as I do and as hard as I do because if I didn't, then I'd actually have to live a full life? What would I do with free time if I were not spending it resting up for the long shifts at work? 

I'd have to reach out to people and cultivate friendships and romance, and some of those won't work and it'll suck. But some of them will and the warmth of those connections could last forever. 

Would have to seek out hobbies, and would probably be bad at some of them, but could find new avenues for joy, and could create new things to be proud of and to share. 

Would have to try new things and go to new places and look like I don't know what I'm doing, but could delight in the discovery of things I never knew were possible, and places I didn't know existed.  

Would have to fully commit to acting, and suck at it sometimes, but also maybe be really great at it, and even better, could occasionally tap into those roles that connect me emotionally to other people. 

I have lived a long time in fear of making the wrong choice. But over the last few weeks, I've had a glimpse, and it feels like a peeking behind a veil, that I can make whatever choice I want and it doesn't matter. These brief flashes feel magical, a wispy mystical hand reaching through for mine to pull me to do it. To do something. Make a choice about anything and go in that direction until it doesn't feel right anymore and then I can simply choose to go another direction.

It feels like freedom.