releasing perfectionism

ass cancer is less than perfect

It may sound odd and unearned to hear me call myself a perfectionist, given that I’ve previously confessed to being a slob and a night person. “Tidying” for me often means shifting piles of clothes and craft supplies from one surface to another.

Not to mention my genetic issues and my congenital heart defect.

Obviously, I am very far from perfect.

And yet I identify as a person who struggles with perfectionism. I think this is mostly a product of acculturation, and that many of us living in the current climate of information overload and the constant pursuit of optimization might similarly identify as perfectionists.

You can’t improve what you can’t measure, they say.¹ And so we wear our Apple watches and Aura rings to measure our sleep, our steps, our oxygen saturation, our heart rates. We track our workouts and our calories consumed.² We are in a perpetual state of self-improvement. Hydrate more!³ How can I optimize my shower, my tooth brushing, my rest?

There is no shortage of data available on the best practices for everything—never mind that that data is often in direct contradiction with other data, championed by equally loud influencers.

I recently read an article about how to optimize pooping and wiping: I didn’t know I’ve apparently been shitting wrong my entire life! And the dangers of bad poop posture!! Did you know? This is an epidemic of emergent proportions! At least according to the author and several engaged commenters.

There’s a “right” way to do everything, and when that information is readily available with a few clicks it seems like a really deliberate choice to persist in doing things “wrong” anyway.

Part of perfectionism is the belief that the attainment of perfection is possible. This is a trap I fall into constantly with parenting. There’s no shortage of experts telling me all the ways I might damage or protect my children if I just find the right script, the right philosophy, the right attachment style.

These people don’t know me, or my children, and yet somehow they have all the answers about how I should relate to my kids in order or build resilience, or empathy, or ambition. Identify the trait you wish to cultivate in your child, and then prune yourself like a bonsai tree to display only the ideal range of emotions and behaviors to attain that goal. For the children! You selfish fool, how could you complain about that when it’s for the children!⁴

Anyway, I am not currently capable of Ideal Parenting, whatever that looks like. Or Ideal Living. I’m blaming cancer, but really I don’t think these goals were ever within reach for me.

I don’t wake up at 5AM for a cardio workout, shower, meditation session, and full face of makeup before preparing a protein-packed breakfast for my family. I don’t always remember to ask my daughter what she’s grateful for today, or something nice she did for someone else. My patience is very thin. I don’t journal my own gratitude lists, or do daily sun salutations, or drink enough water.

I fail constantly.

I can’t even remember to take my vitamins every day—something that was inexplicably easy when I was pregnant, but somehow slips to the bottom of my priority list when it’s only my own health on the line.

Cancer has allowed me to release some of the parenting perfectionism I was holding onto. We are no longer screen-free, for example. We’re screen-light, but far from the perfect screen-free ideal I aspire to.⁵ I was down to under an hour a day of phone time for myself Before Cancer, and now I’m deep in the hole again.

During radiation, my nurse Brooke and I talked nap schedules. Her son is the same age as my daughter. I told her that Sylvie is down to one nap a day, which should theoretically free me up to do all kinds of enriching activities with her now that I’m not quite so nap-trapped. I was just running out of excuses to avoid story time when I got cancer, I joke to Brooke.

It’s good you can find the humor in it, she replies.

Finding humor has never been my particular cross to bear.

Now babysitters or my parents bring Sylvie to the park and the library and the museum while I nap or knit or putter in my garden.

I stopped even aspiring to filling my own reusable pouches. Costco for the win, despite the additional burden on our local landfills.

We hired a cleaning service to pick up some of the slack I’m leaving.

We order more takeout than we used to.

With full acknowledgement of the attendant privileges that enable these choices (money! family help!), we’re now trying to do more of life on easy mode instead of hard mode.

It’s psychologically hard sometimes to so blatantly drop out of the Mompetition. There’s an endless amount of more that I could or should be doing. Sensory bins! Craft projects! Should Violet be learning an instrument? What about gymnastics for Sylvie? It’s mid-June and the pirates haven’t visited the sandbox to bury foreign coins even once this summer.

I’m trying to forgive myself for all the quality time I’m not spending with my children, all the stories that are told by a Granny Macduff podcast instead of by me.

Some other ways in which I’m trying to lower the bar:

• I now do a “culture club” instead of book club. A friend and I share articles or podcasts and discuss them at the hot spring. No complicated logistics, hosting, or need to read an entire book I may or may not enjoy.

• We issued a standing invitation to friends for a super casual Summer Sunday afternoon in the backyard, for which I do not prepare any food or scrub my toilet or clean my house. I don’t send a reminder text or confirm who may or may not be showing up on a given week. Lowering the bar on hostessing is hard for my self esteem, but I want to be able to have community without making myself crazy.

It’s funny because in some ways cancer has released me from perfectionism, but in other ways it’s introduced a whole new element of optimization potential. I’m trying to get away from the notion that every single second of my life from now on should be devoted to curing cancer. How can my showers be optimized? My sleep? My foods? My walks? Is every glass of wine a cause for self-flagellation?

For a while I was doing wall-sits and squats while I brushed my teeth, and making a point of brushing with my non-dominant hand because I read somewhere that that’s a good way to challenge the neural pathways in my brain. I’d do breathing exercises at red lights, and randomly switch up my driving route—because I read this is a “hack” for keeping neural networks fresh, not because I fear stalkers or assassins.

I’m trying to be softer with myself. I notice that I have a harder time with this when there are visitors in town. The need to articulate my routines and plans, what I’m going to eat for dinner or where I store my bowls, makes me insecure and self-conscious. Not because my guests are judging me, but because I know I am failing to live up to my own inner standards and it’s embarrassing to be forced constantly to admit it out loud.

It’s much easier to be kind to friends than to myself. If a friend with two small children and a cancer diagnosis told me that she felt guilty receiving meals and free childcare from friends during treatment, I would tell her not to be so crazy. That she’s dealing with a lot and her friends are happy to help and to please be gentler with herself.

Kindness is so much easier to give to others than to myself.

So am I alone in this? Let me know in the comments. Do you feel similar optimization pressure, in the realm of parenting or in life generally?

What are some ways that you go easy on yourself, or some areas where you offer yourself grace and permission to do things the “wrong” way?

1. Don’t ask me who ‘they’ are, I’ve no idea.

2. To be clear, I do none of this. I know myself and my obsessive tendencies well enough to know this would be mentally deeply unhealthy for me.

3. But actually. Drink some water.

4. To be clear, a lot of these people have excellent and persuasive advice! It’s just….overabundant.

5. Violet watches a movie on Friday evenings. Sylvie is still screen-free.