Displaying items by tag: anxiety

We all have good intentions when it comes to our goals in life. When we first set out to accomplish one, we feel motivated and energized. They create a purpose for us and we can even picture what life would be like when it is completed. Think about a few of yours. Maybe it’s to fix up your home. Or to build a garden and plant vegetables. Or to write a book. When I began writing my memoir, the writing flowed like water in a river. I cranked out scene after scene and continued with this momentum for the better part of a year. But after about a year, my writing trickled to the equivalent of a dried-up creek. Why does that happen? What occurs in our lives or blocks us from successfully completing one of our well-intentioned and important goals? 

“It is the problem of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing.” ~William Faulkner

I have a problem and it is two-folds. I am a perfectionist with the awareness that I am a perfectionist. Why is this a problem? Because once you are aware of somthing you deem a flaw about yourself, then you have the responsibility to change it. Unfortunately, it isn’t so easy.

The first time I noticed it was in second grade. I was laying in my childhood bed, staring at the shapes that looked like faces on the wooden wall next to me, sobbing. I missed my best friend and couldn’t wait to see her again at school on Monday.

It was Saturday morning and she had just left minutes ago from a Friday night sleepover at my house. The night before we ate pizza and watched Disney movies in the basement, then we played with my collection of My Little Ponies, which I had meticulously spaced out in rows and columns by color on the basement floor. If we slept at all, it was in sleeping bags in front of the fireplace. Mostly we stayed up, giggling and laughing, me not wanting the night to end because of the emotions that would come for me when she left. 

As a child, I couldn’t begin to understand why I felt immense sadness after my friend left on Saturday. I just knew that I missed her and missed what I thought was the best night of my life.