Becoming vs. Arriving

May 2025

I spent my entire life as a perfectionist— until, at 24, I finally decided I didn’t want to be one anymore.  

In fifth grade, my teacher had us write about five pages of vocabulary words along with their definitions. When I got to the last page, I realized that my handwriting wasn’t up to my standards, so I started completely over. I remember my friend thinking I was completely crazy, but I didn’t care. I wanted it to be perfect, even if it was dumb little vocab words written on notebook paper. 

What’s worse than beginning over and over until you get it “perfect,” is the paralyzation that can come with perfectionism. Many of us refuse to try anything unless we know for sure we’ll get it right. 

For example, I’ve never been able to finish art projects, or even coloring pages. When I get to a certain point, I realize that if I continue any further there’s a big chance I could mess it up entirely— so it sits in my art chest for eternity. Coloring and art are supposed to be therapeutic, but I wasn’t allowing myself to reap those healing benefits because I was purely focused on how it looked. 

I was always afraid my words wouldn’t perfectly encapsulate what I had in my mind, or that I would say the wrong thing, so I mostly said nothing at all. I’m a reserved person by nature, but even in my close relationships, I never truly expressed who I was, what I thought, or what I felt. I was only focused on being seen as whatever I thought others wanted or expected— I was a chameleon, changing myself to fit whoever I was around at the time. 

In college, I was afraid of not getting good grades— so much so that I could never get myself to truly study. That seems pretty backwards, right? I think in my subconscious mind, it was better to fail because of not trying, than to fail because I did try. When I got bad grades from not studying, it didn’t reflect my intellect, because I simply never put my efforts into learning anything. That kept me from ever having to feel like I truly failed, even though I was wasting money, time, and resources. I spent 5 years in community college. 5 years— bouncing from program to program, career path to career path. Never committing, and never feeling passionate or inspired about anything that I was trying to force myself into. 

I falsely believed during those 5 years that college was the only possible route for me, even though I truly hated it more than anything. I am absolutely in love with learning, I always have been. But I’ve realized I prefer to learn through life and on my own terms— I don’t want to be graded, and I don’t want to feel tied to just one path. Growing up, in primary and elementary school, I was genuinely obsessed with school. I prayed for homework, I wrote random unassigned essays voluntarily, I even put my birthday money away in a lockbox for college one day. But once I reached middle school, the time where studying outside of class started to become more necessary and less optional, that was the beginning of me pulling away from school. Halfway through high school, I gave up completely and I ended up graduating with a 2.3 GPA. My child self would’ve been horrified. 

When I was 3/4 years old, I told my parents I was going to be an author (before I could even read or write), a singer, a nun, a mom, a teacher, and an artist. After remembering who I was as a child and healing my childhood/teenage wounds, I realized that I knew all along who I was supposed to show up as in this world— I just forgot for a while, and now I’m making it happen. Obviously I can’t be both a nun and a mom, but little me felt such a strong connection to God, that I wanted to devote my life to Him in the only way that I knew was possible at that time. I came into this world having a plethora of dreams and goals for my life, and along the way I became discouraged from believing they were possible at all, let alone at the same time. It is possible, though— and I am going to let myself be everything that I feel called to be, no matter how it may seem to others. 

Perfection is a myth, and authenticity is the way. Once you know yourself— how you operate, your talents, gifts, and dreams— perfection becomes truly irrelevant. Because once you know and understand yourself, you love yourself. In my experience, anyways, self understanding and self love are interconnected. How could I ever feel ashamed for spending 5 years in community college, when I know exactly why it took me that long to find myself? To outsiders, it may look like I was directionless or lazy— and I definitely was during some periods— but most of all, I refused to commit to something that didn’t match and excite my soul. I am proud of me for that. During that time, I was able to gain knowledge in a multitude of educational topics, I had the space and freedom to heal, and I was able to decide with absolute certainty what was for me, and what was not. 

This year, I had my breaking point, and the need to show up complete and perfect disappeared— which is exactly why this website is even being created right now. During those five years, I wasn’t only trying to find a career path. My main focus was on healing and remembering myself, but it's very easy to fall into the trap of feeling like no amount of healing is ever enough, no matter how far you've come. The truth is, my healing and self discovery will probably last the rest of my life. There will never be a day where I feel like I've done enough work or learned enough about myself. I've learned to be completely okay with that, because stagnation is worse than not arriving perfectly. I may not fully know what I'm doing or where I'm going yet, but I know this: I refuse to let my becoming delay my arrival any longer.