I've always been
a realist
judgmental
hypercritical.
Because I've always been this way, I could always kind of blame my fault finding on myself rather than my children. If one of them didn't sing a song to my satisfaction or deliver a line exactly the way I thought it should be delivered when they used to go to the studio, well, it didn't necessarily mean they were bad, it just meant that I had unrealistic expectations and expected perfection. When they got A's and B's on their report cards or below the ninety-ninth percentile on their standardized tests, it didn't necessarily mean they weren't intelligent enough, it just meant they weren't as intelligent as I thought they should be. Until now, the faults I found really did epitomize the statement people make that goes something along the lines of, If someone isn't nice to you, it has everything to do with that someone and nothing to do with you.
Until now, even when I found fault, I could chalk it up to the perfectionism my therapist said probably isn't very easy to live with.
But now that it's now, my perfectionism is a scapegoat no more.
Am I being cryptic? I don't mean to be.
This post is just a hard one to write.
See, Keifer didn't make
the soccer team
a soccer team
the soccer teams he wanted.
Because he's been playing travel for so long and starting for the last two years, playing every second of every game, I guess I took for granted he'd make any team he wanted to play for. I think he did, too.
Obviously, that's not what happened.
The reality is, he tried out for four teams and madetwo one-and-a-half. (That one-and-a-half is because one is a B team, and I have a feeling everyone who showed up got offered a spot. I could be wrong, but most likely I'm not.)
The reality is,
checking soccer club websites repeatedly
sitting by the phone waiting for soccer clubs to call
made me
way too anxious
sick to my stomach
have to go the bathroom.
The reality is,
seeing that website without his name on it
not getting that phone call
hearing that one of his teammates made one team and two made another
made me teary
made me nauseated
made my heart hurt
made me question
absolutely everything.*
*This post has gone awry. I told you it was a hard one to write. It seems, I see, like I'm sad for myself, for some kind of loss, maybe the loss associated with the idea of Keifer as a soccer player I once had. That, though, is not the case. Any sadness I feel--and let me tell you, I'm feeling a whole lot of sadness--is for Keifer. Any hurting I experience is for him not because of him.
I may be a crazed perfectionist who wants nothing but right angles and straight lines, but what I want even more is for my children to be happy.**
**It wouldn't hurt if I were happy, too.
a realist
judgmental
hypercritical.
Because I've always been this way, I could always kind of blame my fault finding on myself rather than my children. If one of them didn't sing a song to my satisfaction or deliver a line exactly the way I thought it should be delivered when they used to go to the studio, well, it didn't necessarily mean they were bad, it just meant that I had unrealistic expectations and expected perfection. When they got A's and B's on their report cards or below the ninety-ninth percentile on their standardized tests, it didn't necessarily mean they weren't intelligent enough, it just meant they weren't as intelligent as I thought they should be. Until now, the faults I found really did epitomize the statement people make that goes something along the lines of, If someone isn't nice to you, it has everything to do with that someone and nothing to do with you.
Until now, even when I found fault, I could chalk it up to the perfectionism my therapist said probably isn't very easy to live with.
But now that it's now, my perfectionism is a scapegoat no more.
Am I being cryptic? I don't mean to be.
This post is just a hard one to write.
See, Keifer didn't make
the soccer teams he wanted.
Because he's been playing travel for so long and starting for the last two years, playing every second of every game, I guess I took for granted he'd make any team he wanted to play for. I think he did, too.
Obviously, that's not what happened.
The reality is, he tried out for four teams and made
The reality is,
checking soccer club websites repeatedly
sitting by the phone waiting for soccer clubs to call
made me
way too anxious
sick to my stomach
have to go the bathroom.
The reality is,
seeing that website without his name on it
not getting that phone call
hearing that one of his teammates made one team and two made another
made me teary
made me nauseated
made my heart hurt
made me question
absolutely everything.*
*This post has gone awry. I told you it was a hard one to write. It seems, I see, like I'm sad for myself, for some kind of loss, maybe the loss associated with the idea of Keifer as a soccer player I once had. That, though, is not the case. Any sadness I feel--and let me tell you, I'm feeling a whole lot of sadness--is for Keifer. Any hurting I experience is for him not because of him.
I may be a crazed perfectionist who wants nothing but right angles and straight lines, but what I want even more is for my children to be happy.**
**It wouldn't hurt if I were happy, too.
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