Perfect:-

1.  Having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as is possible to be.

‘she strove to be the perfect wife’

1.1.         Free from any flaw of defect in condition or quality; faultless.

There are several faults with this definition – the definitive article of truth, the golden trophy of excellence, the pinnacle of possibility...

Firstly, I’d really like to know who deems what is “required” and essential. I mean, I’m all for agreeing that post needs to be posted in envelopes for its safe arrival, and bobble hats do, indeed, need to possess a bobble of some sort. However, I’d never go so far as to say, “wow, isn’t this bobble hat just “perfect” with that bobble of its?!” – I mean, if it’s “required” then, well, perhaps neglectfully of me, the bobble is a given (and let’s be honest, if the bobble wasn’t present, god forbid, that hat – although perhaps not a bobble hat – could still be the perfect hat?! That leads me on to my second issue with this definition: surely the classification of “perfect” is unstable, constantly in flux, changing by the second? And thirdly, “as good as is possible to be” – and whose standards would we be using for this greatly weighted commendation?! And fourthly, could those examples of this wonderful adjective in practice be ANY worse?! I mean, hello, 21^st Century! And fifthly, “faultless”, hmm, interesting. Because surely lots of things can be “faultless”…until faulty, or, indeed broken? So, can something still be perfect, in and of itself, if damaged by external factors?

Enough now. For my post is not, at least by intention, a slamming of the Oxford Dictionary – as an English graduate, I am forever grateful and bow down to your expertise; we are all mere mortals in your presence. Although, sneaky little insight, I was the Year 5 dictionary champ, so I’d say, at least briefly, we were pretty chummy once. Either way, I’m going to break free – oh the irony – from my defining antics to say I’m sorry for the lack of posting recently. I could claim I’m still looking for envelopes and we all know it is a requirement to use envelopes for our post…but, well, I guess we’d all know that to be a slightly problematic excuse for my lack of blog posting…

Somewhat ironically, the only explanation I can really offer is that my close companion and archrival has reared its not-so-friendly head and put a halt to the proceedings: perfectionism. Throughout my life my agonizingly perfectionistic nature has been, quite simply, paralysing and, of course, it would be massively false of me to pretend perfectionism doesn’t waggle its perfectly manicured fingernails at my less than perfect written outpourings (and general day to day life…I’m really not a very good human you see)…

Now, on a slightly crude and massively over-simplified level, when I found this definition I laughed, then sighed, then wondered why, oh why, I have spent years and years of my life chasing something so utterly ridiculous. Who - someone please produce the lepracorn - has determined so many of my excrutiatingly tight standards?! Who is this omniscient figure that controls the word “perfect” and why, why, why would I want to fit his constantly changing expectations?! This guy being (oh heck, we could do a feminist take on this) is more indecisive than I am, now that’s really saying something!

At school, people saw my grades and assumed it was all plain sailing for little old me – in all honesty, I know that certain members of my year group hated me for it (I know that because they told me, repeatedly and, or, threw basketballs at my head - PE was a battle ground, frankly it's surprising I live to tell the tale). There was a lot they didn’t see. Setting my alarm for 5.20am I’d rise at the crack of dawn and get 2 hours of revising in before school. Or, at 5.30am you'd find me editing the essay I’d written the night before, because I know, I know, I know, it’s just not good enough. And nothing you, or my parents, or my teachers, or the powers that be (grades) could say would convince me otherwise. And when people rolled their eyes at my “disappointment” when I didn’t get an A* in the science test, it wasn’t because I thought I was unquestionably deserving of the best grades, quite the opposite. My self-worth was so intrinsically reliant upon the grades on a piece of paper that getting an A really did feel like a kick in the teeth. The tests where I’d be one or two marks off 100%? Well, rather than revel in the admiration of others, my head had already skipped ahead to what extra needed to be done: "maybe if I got up an hour earlier, because there’s no way I’m working hard enough…". It wasn't normal and it certainly wasn't healthy. There were days where I’d wish I had failed to sit the exam at all, than receive the news that, whilst I still got an A*, I was so, so close to full marks. I guess that's the problem when you, quite literally, put your life and soul into achieving "the best", anything even slightly less is never good enough. And to anyone who’s never spent a lengthy amount of time with a perfectionist, this will all sound ludicrous (and, I'm aware, probably kind of selfish - for that, I can only apologise, because you couldn't be further from the truth, but in this post alone, I do not have the time to explain why). 

Growing up, I know my parents struggled to comprehend their high achieving daughter’s distress over anything less than perfection. How do you reason with something so utterly irrational? My teachers were happy with my progress, my parents were proud – if anything, together they begged me to let myself take a break, to say “enough now”. And no, my parents did not set high expectations, nor were they "pushy parents", they saw me as academically able and supported me where they could, but they never demanded perfection. That came from me.

I was the child who didn’t like mud, hated sand on her hands, enjoyed painting, but only with overalls galore. I was the cautious one, the weary one, the “is this really a good idea?” one. I liked neatness and needed order. As I grew older and finger painting was a less common occurrence, and thankfully picking worms from the soil was no longer a demand of my peers, my need for control was passed over to test scores and exercise books: the easiest way I could measure my worth. And whilst, caught up in that, there are elements of my perfectionistic nature that I’m extremely grateful for – it isn’t all bad – I’m meticulous and determined and ultimately it got me to a Russell Group University, where I had the best three years of my life, it has come at a cost. And it was never easy. I fight a voice in my head that tells me I’ll “never be good enough” every second of every day and it roots me to the ground. It’s given me stability, and focus, and allowed me to grow, but it’s left me terrified of life in general.

I have never, ever believed myself to be “free from any flaw”. And the feminist in me is arguing that I've never really had "all the required or desirable qualities", because "perfectionism" ISN'T "being perfect". Despite the label, I wasn't aiming for "perfect"; for the majority of my life I didn't "identify" as a "perfectionist", because I never really knew there was a name for "people like me". If anything, the definition I started with makes me feel slightly sick at the patriarchal/societal restrictions and expectations that lurk beneath its utopian description. What's more, in many ways, the problem isn’t with perfectionism itself, it’s with the negative spiel it drip-feeds me and the consequences of my inevitable “failings”. Being a perfectionist isn't about being "flawless", or aiming to be. Being a perfectionist is about painfully high-standards and back-bindingly rigid expectations. Being a perfectionist is about continual self-doubt and the aftermath of perceived "failure". 

Perfectionism is a double-edged sword – it’s bittersweet. It’s something I manage and it’s something I sink into quickly and silently. It's always there, sometimes it's the niggling fly I swat away, other times it's the persistent buzzing of the bee that won't accept "I'm all out of honey". It is paralysing, but this post is proof that I'm not paralysed...and the fact that I "struggle", well, I guess that's just a sign that I'm definitely not "perfect". 

*Going to submit now before I change my mind/fiddle with any more sentences/ponder over punctuation - please forgive my errors: this perfectionist is not flawless*