Her father’s eyebrows knitted together in concern, listening quietly to his daughter over the phone:
Listening to her sobs on how she hated herself;
The guilt that was eating at her for allowing herself to deteriorate to her current predicament;
How she begged him for answers in the midst of her indecision.
His voice, shaking;
Gently telling her to break out of the walls of her mind —
To hold on.
Before they ended their call,
His voice, filled with assurance and love, came on the line:
“You don’t have to be perfect. No one is asking that of you.”
“No one is asking for perfection from you,
We acknowledge how difficult things have been -
We hear you.”
His voice, filled with assurance and love, continued on:
“We only ask, that you tell us what you are going through.
Hold on — just a little bit more till the finish line.”
We are so caught in “perfect”,
That we have neglected “me”.
Society tells us that achieving perfection is key,
Society made us strict in our expectations of others;
But allows us to subject ourselves to a standard even higher.
We pick on ourselves when we get that one mistake wrong,
Taunt ourselves relentlessly for taking that day off despite needing it;
We hate ourselves when we shut everyone out,
Despite needing that step back at the time.
We get so caught in “perfect”,
That we have neglected “me”.
We set high standards for ourselves, influenced by the standards of the world;
That it’s become easy to hate on ourselves when we don’t meet these goals.
“You don’t have to be perfect. No one is asking that of you.”
But we have gotten so caught up in “perfect”,
That we have neglected “me”.
She is us,
She was I.
And on some days, she still is I.
But she is learning how to drag herself out of “perfect”,
To focus on “me” instead -
And she hopes you do too.
