Good Girl

The stress has already begun, and I'm not even back at school yet. Heavens. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the kind of person I want to be, how I might handle certain situations differently. I want to be a calm person, an authentic person, a kind person who tries to be patient with people I like and people I don't. This is a high bar. I know I will not always be this person all the time. I will get sometimes get weepy, and anxious, and irritated. I will alternately be self righteous and self doubting.

I feel like this semester is an opportunity for a breakthrough (or rather, a messy one-step-forward-one-step-back kind of painful progress). I have realized this afternoon, with unprecedented clarity how wrong it is that I almost always equate my sense of self worth with my performance and what other people (might) think of me. I have for years assumed that if I do everything everyone else wants of me, if I always show up on time, turn things in on time, get good grades, go to every single meeting, then I am a good girl. I am worth something.

This is very, very bad. If I do everything, I end up feeling sick and crazy because it never ends and everyone always wants something. Someone else always appears to be doing more, doing better. When I realize I can't do everything, I feel an overwhelming sense of panic and guilt, but I am comparing myself to others and not being true to myself. But what if I do make everything happen? What if I somehow manage to "do it all'? I am passing some subtle and terrible reverse judgment on others: that I am somehow a better person because I show up on time, and do what other people want. That scares me.

This is not the way to become calmer, or more accepting, or more authentic. This is not the road to self respect. This is the road to taking on an unmanageable amount of stress, not being able to prioritize, and then unintentionally taking things out on friends and partners.

Why, then, do I have so much trouble controlling my knee-jerk reactions? Why can't I banish the voice that tells me to do every assignment perfectly, go to every meeting, stay up late and get up early, be on time, get an A every class. I wish I knew. I wish that I could pray or go to therapy (or both) and have this voice magically erased.

I don't think that's likely. Instead, I think I have to feel good that I can finally see this with a clarity I could never have reached a few years ago. Awareness is the first step, right? Today, I said "no" and I'm not going to feel guilty.

It's going to be a messy semester, but a good one I think.