Just when I was ready to believe in families sitting around their holiday tree and enjoying peace, love and understanding together, a note about perfection (nasty, ugly perfection) showed up in our mailbox
itty bitty and Brass Knuckles:
Blaaaggh! I cannot believe I am sending an email to complain about my family during the holidays. What a boring topic. But I don’t know how to have a sense of humor about how crazy they are. They are hysterical people about everything. It’s all a competition. A few examples of this – a) My youngest cousins are eight and eleven. They get threatened so much about being perfect before the family gatherings that they are little statues who are afraid to move. Last year the eight-year-old spilled a glass of water and was hysterical because he thought he’d ruined everything. I felt so sorry for him. b) All of my Aunts end up running all over each other in the kitchen trying to out-clean and out-cook each other and not hearing anything the other one says because they’re always interrupting each other with stories about how perfect their kids are.
I end up getting so stressed out with all of the perfection that I always end up alienating myself by blurting out inappropriate things or telling someone to ‘take a fucking chill pill’.
The need to be perfect is exhausting and I want to have a sense of humor about it. How?
From: Stressed by Perfection
Dear Stressed,
Do you know what one of the definitions is for the word perfect?
The soundness and the excellence of every part, element or quality of a thing frequently as an unattainable or theoretical state.
Do you know what would be happening right now if your special little itty bitty had a heart? I would cry over that exact definition being applied to the human form. I would cry even harder, start blurting out cuss words, and hurling breakable objects across the room over this definition being applied to a human form that is eight or eleven-years-old.
When applied to the human form, especially one that is young, perfect is nothing short of awful, painful, destructive, cruel, debilitating, ugly, mean and simply very, very wrong.
We humans are messy. As we attempt to find our way we are more often than not the epitome of words such as floundering, wandering, off course, attempting, failing, falling down and blabbering. But you already know all of this, don’t you.
Have you ever heard that saying,
If one of your fingers is pointing at someone else, there are four fingers pointing back at you.
In case you are wondering, Stressed, me typing that phrase about finger pointing is the part where this whole conversation turned a corner and itty bitty started taking your sorry ass to school.
I like you Stressed. I really, really do. I like anybody who has compassion for some eight-year-old kid who is driven to hysteria by his/her parent’s drive for perfection. I admire a person who recoils at empty, competitive conversations about who has the best kid.
However, you have four fingers pointing back at yourself and I suspect you know it. To be fair, when talk of perfection and competition abounds, it is easy to take it in, judge it as shallow, throw it aside, and walk away. The operative word here is, of course, easy. But your email did not say you are looking for easy. It said you are looking for humor.
In my observations of humor in stressful situations, it is normally those who have first found compassion who are most often able to relax and have a good laugh.
Questions I asked as I read your email:
- Does Stressed have compassion for those competitive Aunts, or simply judgment and disgust? Does s/he understand how genuinely painful a belief in human perfection can be for a person?
- Is Stressed willing and able to plan, organize and manage fun events for the young cousins during the holidays? What would the other adults think of having the kids out of their hair for a good portion of the day because they were playing board games, cards, Charades, etc…with a responsible adult? Is Stressed willing to be that responsible adult?
- Does Stressed realize s/he may very well be guilty of expecting perfection as well? That s/he may indeed be expecting perfect relaxation out of people who may not be capable of it?
And don’t think I missed this, Stressed:
I end up getting so stressed out with all of the perfection that I always end up alienating myself by blurting out inappropriate things or telling someone to ‘take a fucking chill pill’.
That makes you sound like a pyromaniac throwing gasoline on a fire; simply adding negative energy to a situation that sounds negative enough as it is. Knock it off, get busy planning fun things for the kids now, and next time you see one of your Aunts see if you can’t look at her through eyes of compassion rather than judgment and an expectation of perfection.
I also want you to know I better not find out your family looks like a bunch of perfectionists to you because you are actually a scurrulious dog who has been taking the messiness of being a human being to the point of leeching off of or emotionally blackmailing them to get them to clean up your mess. If that turns out to be the case I will personally make you wear a horribly uncomfortable, ugly and stupid holiday dress and make you practice getting perfect posture by walking around in my living room with a book on your head.
Don’t make me do it, Stressed. You have no idea how ugly it will be if I have to take time away from making my perfect holiday candy just to torture your sorry ass.
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