Anxieties of a Perfectionist

At times my perfectionism halts my progress entirely. Just the thought of something not being perfect will prevent me from even attempting it. Hence why I’ve yet to publish any of my writing. Even something as simple as picking out a child’s birthday gift can send me into a fury of indecisiveness with feelings of inadequacy. It doesn’t help when I wait until the last minute to find that perfect birthday gift either.

Both of my boys have birthdays coming up this week. Captain Awesome will be 7 on Wednesday and Lieutenant Amazing will be 5 on Sunday. I’ve been so busy with everything else in my life, like my new teaching job, caring for a second dog in our home, building Halloween costumes, making soccer ball cakes-pops for the last soccer game, and also trying to buy a house, that their birthdays just kind of crept up on me. All of a sudden it was November 8^th and I had yet to plan a birthday party let alone send invitations out. 

I feel really bad that I wasn’t able to get the birthday invitations out in a timely manner, only giving the birthday guests a little more than a week’s notice of the boys’ party. I know I’m going to feel incredibly worse when nobody shows up to the party. I keep trying to tell the boys, more like warn the boys, “don’t be upset if people aren’t able to make it. We didn’t give them much notice and they might have other plans.” I know their best friends will be there and their cousins too. Their grandparents will all be there and aunts and uncles too. I just worry that their classmates won’t be able to come and that the boys will wonder why. If it comes to that point, I will just have to tell them it is all my fault. 

I am not Supermom as much as I want and try to be. The truth of the matter is, I’m actually pretty far from super, as I am only one human being. And currently this human being is sinking with life’s demands. I feel like I am barely able to keep afloat anymore, yet I keep taking on more and more responsibilities. 

That is probably why I found myself wondering around Barnes and Noble with my husband feeling as if I wanted to cry. We were in search of the perfect books to give the boys as birthday gifts. For the last few years, I’ve looked for keepsake books for each boy and have written a little note in the inside cover to each of them. My husband forever the practical man, immediately found two books that he knew both boys would enjoy. I knew they would enjoy them too, but when I looked at them their was nothing that struck me as special about them. I was looking for something else. My husband didn’t get it, but patient as he always is with me, agreed to continue to help me find what I thought I was looking for. An hour later, and I still hadn’t really settle on anything, then with the pressure of the store announcing it’s closing in the next few minutes, I was forced to make a decision. While I feel confident, I made the right choice for our oldest son. I regret, that I changed our youngest son’s book at the last minute.

Then after all of that, we went on to continue our birthday shopping at Target. Another hour or so later, again I am in the same situation, where I feel like I haven’t made the right decisions for either boy. I’m not sure why these gifts feel like they have to be exactly the right gifts. Maybe because I’ve been looking more and more at becoming more of a minimalist than I am. Not that we buy extravagant gifts. We do only buy our kids gifts for their birthdays and then Christmas, so maybe that is part of the tough decision. It could be that I’ve been feeling like such a horrible mom lately and I want to make up for that, by getting them the perfect gifts. I just want them to truly love their gifts and for them to want to use them regularly. I’d hate to see them played with or used one time and added to the pile of forgotten things in their room, especially with all this time and energy I’ve spent thinking about and picking out what may or may not be the perfect gifts.