I know I've wrote about this before, but it's fresh in my mind and my heart again tonight, and this may be more for me than for anyone who reads this.
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I'm feeling a little bummed today. When I tell you why I'm bummed, you might laugh. It's honestly kind of a silly reason to be bummed, actually...
I got a 93% on a test today.
I know, I know, the majority - if not all - of you are thinking, "Man, I would've killed for a 93% on a test!" All of my friends in my undergrad years thought the same thing. I can't tell you how many times I heard them exclaim excitedly that they got a B- on a paper, or complain that the hours upon hours they spent studying still only got them a C on the test. I never studied, ever, and wrote my 5-10 page papers the night before or even the morning they were due...and always got A's, if not 100%.
But the times I didn't get those 100%'s were as agonizing to me as the C's were to my friends.
For me, not getting a perfect score was personal. It wasn't my paper that was flawed...I was flawed. Or else that's what I imaged my professors thought of me. The imagined disappointment on their faces when they read and graded my work was heart crushing. "I can't believe that Sara of all people would've gotten this wrong! I had such high hopes in her," and would shake their heads sadly as they marked off points in red pen. The 93 points I had received meant nothing...I had failed them on those 7 points.
But I could never talk to anyone about it. My friends wouldn't understand how anyone could be sad about an A-, and the only other "smart" people I knew were always a little smug and smart-assed about it. So for fear of seeming smug and smart-assed, I kept quiet, blushing and muttering an answer only if my friends asked what I got on the-most-difficult-test-in-the-universe. Looking back now, I guess the smug students were probably under the same sort of pressure I was feeling, but we didn't know how to explain it.
I couldn't really tell you exactly what prompted my perfectionism. As a kid I was shy and quiet around everyone except my family (who told me often that I was actually too loud), which led to a constant loneliness that I've struggled with since probably 3rd grade. But even shy kids want positive attention. Thinking about it now, I don't think I was really encouraged or praised for much growing up, my grades and maybe piano were the only times I got a genuine "That's great, Sara!" Everything else I did got, at best, a preoccupied, "That's nice, dear."
I got a C once on my 4th grade quarterly report card, and while I don't remember how my parents reacted, I definitely remember disappointment. Not necessarily from them or my teacher, but from myself. School was the one thing I was good at and I had - in my mind - failed. The one thing I gained approval for, and I had almost lost it. From then on out it was A's only; 100's were the best but I'd settle for 95's.
The thing about constant "perfection" though is that if you've already attained it and constantly maintain it, there's really nothing surprising or impressive about it anymore. It mostly becomes a little joke when I don't get a 100; "What?! Sara got a 99?! Oh, the horror!!" Said in jest, usually with a loving twinkle in the eye...but still the little arrows of accusation fly straight to my heart: "You're not perfect. They're not going to love you if you're not perfect. Why would anyone want to love someone who's not perfect? No one loves you."
And these lies started popping up in other areas of my life outside of school. A small stutter or misspoken sentence in a "normal" conversation in a group setting: "Imperfection!" the lies say, "It would be better if you said nothing at all. Better yet, just stay home next time, then you won't have to be around other people who would see your imperfection and therefore not love you." So I stay home. Boys I had a crushes on started dating someone else: "Imperfection! If you had been more beautiful, more noticeable, more perfect, he would have picked you! But don't let him see you, or else he'll see all your plain, stuttering imperfection and won't love you!" So I dress unnoticeably and don't talk to boys for years, watching my crushes all fall in love, get married, and have children with their beautiful wives.
But through the persistent love of several wonderful friends and mentors over the last decade, and I've finally begun to accept the Truth of who God has made me to be, and that He finds me beautiful and worth loving despite my "imperfections", and actually doesn't even see them because He's so besotted with me. By "begun", I mostly mean that I can say it out loud, and if I focus enough that all I see is His face I may actually believe it with my whole heart for a moment or two. He thinks I'm "more than just a beautiful mess" (to quote Matthew West) and it's messing with my heart...in a good way. But the scars still hurt, and lies that have been believed for decades are sometimes tricky to uproot fully. Sometimes when I think Jesus and I have finally gotten the last one pulled out, another root pops up and proves even trickier to dig out. Enter grad school.
This semester I started the Master's of Arts in Library Science program online through Mizzou. I love it!!! I don't know why it's taken me so long to start school again. I love learning, I love that feeling of figuring out something new and making connections to the things in my life that I've just been plodding through without understanding. God gave me as a beautiful gift a highly intelligent brain, and it feels great to be using it to it's full potential again.
And as you can imagine, up till now all of my assignments have earned me a 100%...until this test from last week. Instantly after seeing my grade on the test, my heart sunk and shame started creeping in again. I honestly opened up the test and quickly scrolled down to find the ones I'd missed, ignoring the 23 of the 25 questions that got full marks just to zero in on the ones I got wrong.
And right now I'm faced with a choice. Stew over this grade, and how it will affect my average for the class; or go completely against my own brain and heart and choose to believe something so radical I almost can't think it to type it out.........
I am still loved.....
and if possible I am loved even more so now simply because I dared to think it, despite the habit of self-hatred. It is so much simpler to just give in to habitual thinking, and my mind has been trained to despise myself when I am imperfect. But no...I am loved by my family and my friends, some of which are boys (no Dad, just because they are boys and my friends does not make any of them my boyfriend!! ;-P ).
But most importantly, I am loved by God...and in the end, that's the only thing that matters.
