Perfect Lies

I am perfect. Seriously. I don't say this in a boastful or gloating way. I say it in a whispery, almost embarrassed way. It's only taken me fifty two and a half years to get to this simple truth. I only just realised it.

I've been the victim of perfect lies. Mostly waiting for things to be perfect. Waiting for perfect timing. Waiting for the perfect opportunity. The perfect moment. The perfect outfit. Hairdo. Job. Holy shit, you could spend your whole life waiting for things to be perfect.

In the past year, the perfection thing has really been strangling me. I've been a writer all my life. I've written stories, poems, journals, essays, blogs, letters, speeches, emails. I write for fun. I write for a living. I love words and words seem to love me too. We're perfect for each other actually.

Three years ago I decided to write a gardening and cooking blog. It was an experiment to see if I could sustain a writing practice because I wanted to be a column writer in some future, perfect stage of life. I loved blogging. I wrote two or three posts a week, took photos and developed a sideline interest in photography. I loved my blog very much. It felt like an expression of the real me and my passions.

After a year of writing in quiet anonymity I started to promote the blog -- you know, to experiment with having other people read it. And that was pretty thrilling too. I got a lot of positive feedback and some followers. People left encouraging comments. I had site stats to analyse. I emailed a link to my favourite food writer, Nigel Slater, and he read it and sent me a gorgeous email that made me cry with happiness. I joined the NZ food bloggers' association and went to a conference. I handed out business cards and started getting followed by other food bloggers. The editor of Cuisine magazine started reading my blog. (She's my cousin, but hey, she's the editor of Cuisine!)

Awesome eh? Except as soon as I'd attracted an audience I stopped writing.

It's been excruciating, not writing. But I have felt totally unable to write. This block comes with a physical symptom -- like someone's standing behind me, holding my arms down by my side and pulling in on my solar plexus. I can't breath properly, I can't yell out, and I can't get away.

I realised today that this is the grip of perfection. Telling me that there's no way it's going to let me be a real writer. Telling me I'm not smart enough, original enough, creative enough, or strong enough to make it as a writer. It's yelling to stay away from the edge. Don't get burnt. Don't, whatever you do, open up too much, get hurt. It's OK to doodle around in a journal, and post on a blog nobody reads. But that's IT.

OK, so that was quite a shocking realisation. I haven't just got writers' block. I've got perfection doing a permanent Heimlich maneuver on me! Good to know. 

It's clear enough that perfection is the inner critic in this situation. It's a belief that I need to suffer and struggle and sweat and perform miracles to be good enough to get anything I really want. And believing that even then, I probably won't get it. I feel embarrassed and ashamed writing that. But it's true. The vice of perfection gripping me and holding me back is a just part of myself that's terrified -- of being honest, expressive, known, read. I'm sure it's not a coincidence that those are also the things I want the most -- to be honest, expressive, known, read.   

This is exhausting -- wrestling myself over what I want most and fear most. It's so exhausting I've had no energy to write. Which, perhaps, is the perfect truth of our struggle with perfectionism.

I was trying to meditate (perfectly of course) today, and all I could see was this big old self-inflicted fist fight; all I could feel was the pain in my solar plexus. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So I called a truce. No fighting for a few hours, so I can write something.

This is it. It feels kind of exhilarating. It's a relief. It's perfect. I'm perfect. Just like this.