(no subject)
My therapist told me that I’m a perfectionist probably because it was a way for me to take control of an unstable home life early on, and the coping mechanism has stayed with me (and further developed) as an adult.
Now it seems I can’t function without an entire schedule, routine, or regimen that controls every aspect of my life. For example, I can’t just go for a walk now and then, I need a daily or several-times-a-week regimen to feel like that walking is a workout or is keeping me fit. Even then, it’s not running, is it? When I’m not running, I always compare my fitness to when I was training for and running half marathons. That was the best shape of my life, so now it becomes the point to which I compare my current fitness. Moderate activity never seems to be enough when a weekly schedule of running could be followed: weekday short runs; intervals once a week, usually on Wednesdays; long slow runs on the weekends, usually Sundays, which take at least a couple hours and cover twelve to fifteen miles. Tallied up weekly miles on a calendar look like they progress two steps forward/one step back each week until the miles add up to the ideal weekly total. Of course the total mileage gets cycled depending on when races are scheduled so that I peak for and recover from each race. All this is a lot to keep up with, not to mention the amount of sleep it takes to recover from these weekly miles and the time to prepare food to support such efforts. It all amounts to a lifestyle that doesn’t leave much room for anything else. It’s an all-or-nothing thing, in my mind. So right now I’m not running, because I have work and school and a husband and friends to keep up with, books to read, movies to watch, bikes to ride and things to write.
This writing thing takes a lot of time. Not so much in the sitting down to write, but the nailing down of the subject to be written on. When I’ve got something to write I agonize over it. I find that at any random moment the thought comes to my mind that I have to write something, and, oh my god what am I going to write about. Oh my god-just like that. Because I don’t really believe in god, you see, but I hope that, by god, I’ll get an idea sooner or later. And that idea has to be the best possible idea that I could write about. It’s got to inspire me to write a beautiful piece that I will not only NOT be embarrassed about, but also something I can actually feel good about. Which, really, is highly unlikely when you get down to it.
Which usually brings me back to pondering who I am and how I came to be this way. Ultimately, I always have this sense that there’s something wrong with me, something I’m missing that other people have without a thought about it. This could be some understanding of life or how people interact. I have a great fascination with reading about other peoples’ lives. The internet has been a terrific source of information on how other people live and think. I have a whole list of blogs that I read, some political, but most just personal journals. I have accounts on blogging websites just so that I can log on and read other people’s blogs. It goes like this: get involved in one of the blog website communities. Find other people with common interests. Ask them to “friend” you so that you can be among the chosen few to read their blogs. Of course, this assumes you will blog too.
I go through stages. Sometimes I will blog on any random event in my daily life, and even some of the deeper realizations I have. Other times I won’t write a thing for months, because deep down I never want to just write something and put it out there for the world to see. It’s got to be perfect, it’s got to be a little witty, intelligent, and interesting enough to show I’m not a total boring loser of a person who has nothing better to do than try to get other people to read my blog.
But always, there is the regular reading of the blogs on my friends page - the people who have traded “friend” status with me. I look to see how they navigate their lives, and find out I’m not all that weird. Actually, I’m quite boring, really. Which contributes to my putting off writing my next blog entry until another day when something interesting might happen to me. It’s got to be great or be nothing at all.
Sure there are others out there with this all-or-nothing tendency: the girls who binge and purge; weight lifters who live, eat and breathe for lifting; triathletes who have to train for three sports to race in one event (puts my little running schedule to shame, really, but those poor people have no life); ladder-climbers in the corporate world that spend more time in the office than at home or out with friends, so their blog becomes their connection to the outside world; shoe-aholics who hide their passion from their husbands and find acceptance and consolation from other shoe-lovers.
All this makes me realize I’m not that weird, but it gives me no direction for how to live a moderate and balanced life. There are those around me who seem to do it naturally and are quite happy. I dream of being like that. But no matter how great things are in my life I don’t always know how to enjoy it. I always have this underlying anxiety that something’s going to slip and I’ll lose it all. Or I feel like there’s something else, or something more I should be doing. There always is.
I’ve gone through various stages. I start running and realize that I could actually compete if I ran just a few more miles a week. Then I would add the intervals. Then the long runs. Then I realize I have no life so I quit running in order to live a fuller life.
Then I think it’s time I pursued learning guitar because I always have, and I have this newfound time in my schedule. It all starts out innocent enough, but soon I’m practicing hours a day just so that I can impress my teacher and show that I’m a “quick learner” and actually have a talent here, and isn’t it great to pick up an instrument at 27?
But then guitar takes over my life and while my marriage is disintegrating I’m spending two hours a day practicing because it’s something I can focus on and see progress in and I must be good if I’m going to play at all.
Then there’s the volleyball obsession, the road biking obsession, the hand drumming obsession, the classic literature obsession, the financial wizard and investing obsession, the drawing obsession. Oh, this all makes me very tired just thinking about it. Funny, people used to say that to me when I’d talk about just my current obsession.
Friends have commented, in a teasing voice tinged with jealousy, how diligent and industrious I am. Yes, this drive comes from inside me, no one is holding a gun to my head, but it often feels like I have no choice. During times when I’ve tried to be more moderate in the things I do-be less devoted to one thing so that I can do more things altogether-I always feel like I’m letting something go, failing at something, or not dedicated enough to something. It’s definitely a spinning-plate scenario that can keep me up at night: reading one novel by a great author is not enough, for a better understanding I must read at least three, but soon someone mentions another of the great authors and I feel ignorant; I want to do yoga, it would be so great for me and really compliment what I’m doing on the bike, but once a week is just not enough if I want to really make progress; because I don’t have a car and like to ride bikes I feel I have to be able to hang with not only the roadies but the mountain bike riders as well. It goes on and on like that, with every interest and feeling of responsibility I have. Don’t even get me started with work or school.
The real problem comes when I feel that any one of these things is slipping. At some point I give up altogether and just let it go. When it comes to playing the guitar or yoga it’s not a big deal, I just let it go for now and hope to come back to it. The immediate consequences are simply that I’m not playing guitar or doing yoga. But when it comes to work or school it can mean paralysis that keeps me from doing anything. I blow off assignments altogether just because I’m so intimidated in doing them just right that I don’t do them at all.
The crazy thing is that I’m never perfect or even all that great at these things that stress me so. I can feel pretty good about some of the things I do, but I’m not the best at anything I do. It’s not like I’m a driven, world-class figure skater or chess champion. I’m just a regular person trying to live a regular life. It shouldn’t be that hard. I don’t desire any medals and I don’t have a lifelong ambition.
It has gotten better as I’ve grown older. At 32, I actually realize what’s going on and can reason with myself when I start to get obsessed with something. I resist the urge all the time to put together a schedule for my (fill in the blank) and try to take every day as it comes, choosing my activity as I’m inspired. My wonderful husband Sal puts in a word now and then to bring me back to reality. One night when he and I were talking over Chinese takeout I was saying how I’d like to try my hand at road bike racing. He told me he thought that was a bad idea considering I was working full time, had three classes that semester, and, oh, we’d just gotten married and he’d like to spend some time with me. I said, yeah, I know, but secretly was thinking about when I could fit in training rides and how I’d make it to the Saturday and Sunday group rides. When we were done we each took our fortune cookie, cracked them open and read our fortunes aloud. I paused for a moment before reading mine, “You cannot ride in all directions at once.” No kidding. Sal posted it on the refrigerator. I decided riding my road bike on the weekends with Sal would be fun.
Now it seems I can’t function without an entire schedule, routine, or regimen that controls every aspect of my life. For example, I can’t just go for a walk now and then, I need a daily or several-times-a-week regimen to feel like that walking is a workout or is keeping me fit. Even then, it’s not running, is it? When I’m not running, I always compare my fitness to when I was training for and running half marathons. That was the best shape of my life, so now it becomes the point to which I compare my current fitness. Moderate activity never seems to be enough when a weekly schedule of running could be followed: weekday short runs; intervals once a week, usually on Wednesdays; long slow runs on the weekends, usually Sundays, which take at least a couple hours and cover twelve to fifteen miles. Tallied up weekly miles on a calendar look like they progress two steps forward/one step back each week until the miles add up to the ideal weekly total. Of course the total mileage gets cycled depending on when races are scheduled so that I peak for and recover from each race. All this is a lot to keep up with, not to mention the amount of sleep it takes to recover from these weekly miles and the time to prepare food to support such efforts. It all amounts to a lifestyle that doesn’t leave much room for anything else. It’s an all-or-nothing thing, in my mind. So right now I’m not running, because I have work and school and a husband and friends to keep up with, books to read, movies to watch, bikes to ride and things to write.
This writing thing takes a lot of time. Not so much in the sitting down to write, but the nailing down of the subject to be written on. When I’ve got something to write I agonize over it. I find that at any random moment the thought comes to my mind that I have to write something, and, oh my god what am I going to write about. Oh my god-just like that. Because I don’t really believe in god, you see, but I hope that, by god, I’ll get an idea sooner or later. And that idea has to be the best possible idea that I could write about. It’s got to inspire me to write a beautiful piece that I will not only NOT be embarrassed about, but also something I can actually feel good about. Which, really, is highly unlikely when you get down to it.
Which usually brings me back to pondering who I am and how I came to be this way. Ultimately, I always have this sense that there’s something wrong with me, something I’m missing that other people have without a thought about it. This could be some understanding of life or how people interact. I have a great fascination with reading about other peoples’ lives. The internet has been a terrific source of information on how other people live and think. I have a whole list of blogs that I read, some political, but most just personal journals. I have accounts on blogging websites just so that I can log on and read other people’s blogs. It goes like this: get involved in one of the blog website communities. Find other people with common interests. Ask them to “friend” you so that you can be among the chosen few to read their blogs. Of course, this assumes you will blog too.
I go through stages. Sometimes I will blog on any random event in my daily life, and even some of the deeper realizations I have. Other times I won’t write a thing for months, because deep down I never want to just write something and put it out there for the world to see. It’s got to be perfect, it’s got to be a little witty, intelligent, and interesting enough to show I’m not a total boring loser of a person who has nothing better to do than try to get other people to read my blog.
But always, there is the regular reading of the blogs on my friends page - the people who have traded “friend” status with me. I look to see how they navigate their lives, and find out I’m not all that weird. Actually, I’m quite boring, really. Which contributes to my putting off writing my next blog entry until another day when something interesting might happen to me. It’s got to be great or be nothing at all.
Sure there are others out there with this all-or-nothing tendency: the girls who binge and purge; weight lifters who live, eat and breathe for lifting; triathletes who have to train for three sports to race in one event (puts my little running schedule to shame, really, but those poor people have no life); ladder-climbers in the corporate world that spend more time in the office than at home or out with friends, so their blog becomes their connection to the outside world; shoe-aholics who hide their passion from their husbands and find acceptance and consolation from other shoe-lovers.
All this makes me realize I’m not that weird, but it gives me no direction for how to live a moderate and balanced life. There are those around me who seem to do it naturally and are quite happy. I dream of being like that. But no matter how great things are in my life I don’t always know how to enjoy it. I always have this underlying anxiety that something’s going to slip and I’ll lose it all. Or I feel like there’s something else, or something more I should be doing. There always is.
I’ve gone through various stages. I start running and realize that I could actually compete if I ran just a few more miles a week. Then I would add the intervals. Then the long runs. Then I realize I have no life so I quit running in order to live a fuller life.
Then I think it’s time I pursued learning guitar because I always have, and I have this newfound time in my schedule. It all starts out innocent enough, but soon I’m practicing hours a day just so that I can impress my teacher and show that I’m a “quick learner” and actually have a talent here, and isn’t it great to pick up an instrument at 27?
But then guitar takes over my life and while my marriage is disintegrating I’m spending two hours a day practicing because it’s something I can focus on and see progress in and I must be good if I’m going to play at all.
Then there’s the volleyball obsession, the road biking obsession, the hand drumming obsession, the classic literature obsession, the financial wizard and investing obsession, the drawing obsession. Oh, this all makes me very tired just thinking about it. Funny, people used to say that to me when I’d talk about just my current obsession.
Friends have commented, in a teasing voice tinged with jealousy, how diligent and industrious I am. Yes, this drive comes from inside me, no one is holding a gun to my head, but it often feels like I have no choice. During times when I’ve tried to be more moderate in the things I do-be less devoted to one thing so that I can do more things altogether-I always feel like I’m letting something go, failing at something, or not dedicated enough to something. It’s definitely a spinning-plate scenario that can keep me up at night: reading one novel by a great author is not enough, for a better understanding I must read at least three, but soon someone mentions another of the great authors and I feel ignorant; I want to do yoga, it would be so great for me and really compliment what I’m doing on the bike, but once a week is just not enough if I want to really make progress; because I don’t have a car and like to ride bikes I feel I have to be able to hang with not only the roadies but the mountain bike riders as well. It goes on and on like that, with every interest and feeling of responsibility I have. Don’t even get me started with work or school.
The real problem comes when I feel that any one of these things is slipping. At some point I give up altogether and just let it go. When it comes to playing the guitar or yoga it’s not a big deal, I just let it go for now and hope to come back to it. The immediate consequences are simply that I’m not playing guitar or doing yoga. But when it comes to work or school it can mean paralysis that keeps me from doing anything. I blow off assignments altogether just because I’m so intimidated in doing them just right that I don’t do them at all.
The crazy thing is that I’m never perfect or even all that great at these things that stress me so. I can feel pretty good about some of the things I do, but I’m not the best at anything I do. It’s not like I’m a driven, world-class figure skater or chess champion. I’m just a regular person trying to live a regular life. It shouldn’t be that hard. I don’t desire any medals and I don’t have a lifelong ambition.
It has gotten better as I’ve grown older. At 32, I actually realize what’s going on and can reason with myself when I start to get obsessed with something. I resist the urge all the time to put together a schedule for my (fill in the blank) and try to take every day as it comes, choosing my activity as I’m inspired. My wonderful husband Sal puts in a word now and then to bring me back to reality. One night when he and I were talking over Chinese takeout I was saying how I’d like to try my hand at road bike racing. He told me he thought that was a bad idea considering I was working full time, had three classes that semester, and, oh, we’d just gotten married and he’d like to spend some time with me. I said, yeah, I know, but secretly was thinking about when I could fit in training rides and how I’d make it to the Saturday and Sunday group rides. When we were done we each took our fortune cookie, cracked them open and read our fortunes aloud. I paused for a moment before reading mine, “You cannot ride in all directions at once.” No kidding. Sal posted it on the refrigerator. I decided riding my road bike on the weekends with Sal would be fun.