On being perfect...

One of my faithful blog readers posted writing about “If there is anything I am perfect at, it is being imperfect.”

Yesterday I went on a journey through emails and journal entries I wrote last year. Exchanges with people while I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me, make sense out of my decisions and to see how far I have come in terms of my thinking. What struck me the most was how completely and totally hard I was on myself about everything. All relationships, failed friendships, bad decisions, etc…were all my fault. Completely my fault.

I found one particular exchange with a friend writing about how my marriage was failing due to my eating disorder. I called myself in this email “stupid and selfish.” In other emails I lamented how my husband was “great” and I was throwing away a perfectly good life and person. I was the one constantly screwing up. I was the one who couldn’t get a grip. I was the one who f-ed up everything.

While it sounds like a depressing exercise to undertake, it was a rather cathartic experience seeing the journey and transformation my mind has undergone over the past 15 months. While I still have trouble with too much self-blame or “perfectionism,” I have more of an ability to evaluate situations at face value, take my share of the responsibility, but let others have their share of accountability.

My husband, who I am separated from at this time, has asked me for a couple of months now (since I left) to write him emails back, even if they are angry. He invited me to write to vent or say things I needed to say to him. I hadn’t taken him up on the offer for fear of “hurting his feelings” or rather deep down knowing that it was going to be an exercise in futility. He wrote me over and over again how he is “so much stronger than I give him credit for.” That “he can take whatever it is I have to say.”

Well, finally he wrote me a short email that really ticked me off. He asked if I had found another counselor. (My previous therapist was not on the new insurance list when we switched over.) I replied that no I hadn’t and he responded angrily with, “I don’t understand why you are not looking for a counselor because that is the most important part of your recovery. You were willing to leave me because you said you would get better, but you’re not doing anything else.” Not that he didn’t have a point about looking for a counselor, but it was the judgmental tone that I was upset about. He didn’t do ANYTHING for 9 months yet he had the audacity to talk to me like that. I was mad. So I did what he asked. I wrote him an email about my feelings solely pertaining to the time between May 6, 2006 (when I told him about my eating disorder) and up to the point when I left at the beginning of Feb. I wrote about how his neglect and avoidance made me feel worthless and that his excuses on why he wasn’t available to me when I asked for his help made it even worse.

He responded with the most subtly cruel and sarcastic email I have ever received with such rantings like: “Now you are judging me and psycho analyzing me and my ability to deal with the bomb you dropped in my lap” “Don’t put our marriage 100% on my shoulders. And for the love of God don’t sit there and say that your health problems are in my hands.” “Are you perfect? This is the real world Kate. This is how people deal with things. People make mistakes.” “If you are to proud of your analysis of our lives together to give me a second chance then I will continue to wait and hope that eventually you realize what a blessing you are simply dismissing as a passive aggressive man that holds no value to someone like you.”

The part that really got to me was him having to deal with “the bomb that I dropped on his lap. Like I purposefully gave him something to deal with that messed up his life. What I wanted to say back was, “Life is full of bombs. That is the real world. Something could happen at any given moment that changes your life or your paradigm that you’ve been operating under.” Does it take people 9 months to deal with a BOMB???

I go back to the fact that my parents, in their late 20’s, had to deal with the news that my mom had endometriosis. She was going to have to have her entire reproductive system removed to save her life and that meant that she could never have her own children. My mom and dad had to deal with the fact that all of their hopes and dreams for building a family were done…at least in the way that they had planned. THAT is a bomb. That is a HUGE bomb.

When I relayed my husband’s email to my dad, I asked him a few questions. My parents, while always supporting me, are not happy with my decision to leave and separate. They are very religious and fundamentally believe that you should give a marriage every opportunity to succeed. I can also relay many things back to them that my husband says or does, but it is still my take on it. I forwarded his email to both of my parents so they could see in HIS own words what I’ve had to deal with. But I asked my dad a few things. “Dad, when you and mom found out she was sick, I’m sure that was a pretty big life bomb was it not? And I’m sure that you, being a guy who can’t go through the same thing, really didn’t understand the complexities and emotional hardships my mom would have to go through. I’m sure you were scared and confused yourself. But Dad, I’m willing to bet that no matter how much you didn’t understand, didn’t know what would happen in the future and questioned your own ability to deal, that you were there for my mom. I bet you went to every doctor appointment with her. I bet you held her as she cried. I bet you were there with her during her surgery. I bet you waited on her during her recovery. I bet you researched and tried to understand as best you could. And I bet that you worked with her to reshape your goals and dreams for a family and helped determine the next course of action. AND, I bet you did most of this without my mom having to ask because you saw her hurt and wanted to do everything to make sure #1 that she was ok.”

My dad had nothing to say but yes. I then went on to say that, “someone not understanding and thinking something is too big of a bomb to deal with is not an excuse to not be there. I don’t even understand that line of thinking.” My husband should have no matter the problems in our marriage, no matter how much he was scared, no matter how much he didn’t understand, should have been concerned about my failing healthy first and foremost. He should have taken charge and just done for me…without me even having to spell out every single thing. His email was a load of excuses of every reason why he couldn’t be there and placed all of the blame on me. I didn’t tell him what I needed. I didn’t communicate to him. I dropped all of my problems in his lap. I didn’t help myself. Etc… In many respects, he was right. I didn’t communicate a lot to him because I didn’t know how to in a healthy manner. I was sick both mentally and physically. I barely understood myself what I had done. That’s part of the problem of an eating disorder. But one thing I did do was try. I got myself to counseling. I got myself into a doctor. I did tell him about my problem and I did ask for help even though I didn’t know exactly what help I needed. It took him until the day I walked out to even research ANYTHING about bulimia or ask about my counseling or my doctor appointments.

Wow…I’ve completely gone away from my original intent. I guess I needed to write about all of that. My original point was going to be this. I expected myself to be perfect to my standards of perfection. I expected myself to be everything to everyone and everything they need without expectations of that ever being returned. I expected myself to know through all of my disorder and messed up way of thinking that I should be the one responsible for the care of myself and that I needed to save my marriage because it was the Biblically right thing to do.

But you know what? I am not perfect. I can’t live up to my own expectations. And I can’t live up to other’s expectations whether real or perceived. I am so excited about saying that because I have found freedom in my imperfections. I have found freedom in the fact that no matter how much people try to make me responsible, because in the past I’ve let them, that I don’t have to tolerate it. I am free to make decisions, perfect or not, right or wrong. I am beginning to enjoy life and all of its messiness and imperfections again and I am enjoying just being me again. Perfect or not, being me is just fine.