Meet You In The Middle

I…am a perfectionist.

I know…I know…you’re wearing your shocked faces right now. “*gasp* No way! Not Sheri! She seems so easy on herself…chill and unmotivated!!”

Oh…wait…none of you are doing that? Hmph.

Ok, fine. No one is surprised by this.

I am an all or…well…all person. I never shy away from challenges and will try anything, but if I’m going to do it…I am going to try to be AWESOME at it! I don’t want to be an ok runner, I want to hit PRs every day! I don’t want to be a meh writer,  I want my words to change the world!!

And then…there’s school…Lord, have I pushed myself with school. I wasn’t just going to go back…I was going to go back and get two degrees and graduate with honors!! I was going to be the best student in the history of students!!! None of this, “Cs get degrees” bullshit! A is for AWESOME!!! That only got worse when people started making a fuss. “You’re famous at KSU.”, “You’re an unstoppable force.” “I have faith that you’ll NEVER lose momentum!”, “You make us proud”. <~~~~~~ Add all of that in and…well…I became obsessed. It didn’t matter what else was happening, I HAD to get those As. I HAD to be perfect!!

And then…suddenly…right as the end was in sight…things changed. I faced my first challenge where it was literally going to make me sick to try to keep that up. A challenge where I can’t go on 3 hours of sleep after studying all night. A challenge where there are days I can’t focus on the piles of schoolwork in front of me.

Suddenly…I was getting Bs in a class. Consistently.

Suddenly…honestly…I didn’t care.

I am 42 years old…a single mom…working full time…going to school full time…amongst other goals…and I’m sick.

I can’t be perfect.

But I can be good enough.

If I get Bs in every class, I will still now graduate magna cum laude. Maybe I won’t get some congratulatory letter from the school. But I’ll still get my degrees. Maybe I’ll have a 3.7 GPA instead of 3.8. Big deal. No one is ever going to as me what my GPA was.

Perfection…is exhausting.

Excellence is “that quality of being outstanding or extremely good”. Excellence does not mean perfection.

Mediocrity will never be my jam…Excellence will now be my goal…but, most likely…

I’ll meet you in the middle. At Good Enough.

And that is good enough for me.