The rest of the blog you wanted to read is still inside my head.
Inside my head it is P E R F E C T.
You’d really love reading it!
You’d be reading it and thinking “Wow! This is maybe the best blog post I’ve ever read. I didn’t know I could love a blog post so much until just now. Reading this is a joy and a revelation. Just wow! Really golly-gosh wow!”
In my head the blog post you wanted to read has perfect word choice; it’s insightful and erudite and thought-provoking; but it’s also accessible and friendly and down to earth with just a dash and a splash of tasteful and witty humor. Everything about it is just right. Every single human being on the planet would agree it was the best blog that had ever been written.
So now that you know how awesome the blog post inside my head is maybe you can start to understand why it’s so difficult to take it out of my head and put it on the page (or the screen) for you to read.
As soon as I take it out of my head and start typing the words it starts to be less than perfect. I can’t find the right words, and my sentences don’t flow, and it’s all coming out either too serious or too flaky or too dull or too zany or too… too not perfect.
The reality meets my fantasy of perfection and the end result is failure. My blog post is a failure and that means I am a failure.
And it’s not even my dark shameful secret anymore. You will read my imperfect blog and then you will know I am a failure too. The whole world will know I am a failure.
A part of me (the part that listens to my therapist) knows that’s not true.
"Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order."
I am a perfectionist in recovery.
Some days are okay and I manage to do things that are ‘good enough’ without all the self-torture. Other days are a battle with procrastination, imposter-syndrome, and a core feeling of not being good enough (never, ever, no matter what I do).
Part of my recovery process is publishing my unfinished, still in process, nowhere near perfect blogs. It’s either
A) take a deep breath and push through the discomfort of pressing the ‘publish’ button now,
or B) keep it in draft form for all eternity.
That blog you wanted to read? It will be done soon – or at least some more of it will.
You can visit it regularly if you like and watch it hatch and grow. It might be a frustrating egg for a while. Or go through an ugly duckling stage. You can share in its’ growing pains and the messy birth process.
I am optimistic that I will continue on my recovery journey and live to see the day when I can just write a blog like I imagine ‘normal’ folk do. I will have an idea, write a draft, work on it till it’s good enough and then, and only then, press the publish button and share it with you.
In the meantime, thank you for your patience.