Can't Shake Perfection

 I am far from perfect. FAR from it. There is this niggling that tugs at my brain and my heart though. A little voice that quietly reminds me of all of my faults, my mistakes, my misdeeds. And she is there.  Always.  And sometimes she roars in my ears until I melt into this abyss.  Is that the real purgatory? To live mired in the imperfections of your past. Your present. The things that haunt you into your future. Maybe. or just maybe all of those things that I have studied from Freud and Bloom and the countless psychologists of yore ring true. Either way, I hate it.

I hate the internal crumbling. The feelings that who I am today are still a disguise for the stupidity of my youth. Well, let's be real here. My first 35 years or more. I search and I work to quiet this roar within me, but she just keeps clawing her way back into my life.  She stalks me with a stealth so quiet yet aggressive that I barley know when I am under her spell. "They" call it being triggered. If you have read anything I have written you may have seen that I am not especially fond of that word. So I will deny and call it the voice.

The voice speaks to me through the words and actions of others. Maybe they remind me about something in my past that I am ashamed of or maybe they call out something in my present that I fight so hard against. Whatever it my be, she starts quietly, slowly in my heart. And somehow like a demon possessed, she crawls up my chest, strangles my throat, and inhabits my brain. Turning and turning over the chorus of lies, or maybe truths I try to forget. To overcome. She reminds me. Traps me. And takes me down the rabbit hole.

It is there that I second guess. Where I mire in the guilt. Where I feel complete imperfection and guilt. Where my brain screams out to God begging His forgiveness for my past transgressions. Praying for the strength to live a life as He would. I pray for patience and forgiveness...for myself and for anyone negatively impacted by things I have said or done. And while I know He created me to be human, imperfect, I just can't shake that internal voice. The one that reminds me of every little time, I erred. The big ones too.

My thinking brain knows that some of these errors were completely my fault and while I did not always learn quickly from them, I do believe I have learned. My thinking brain knows why I was in specific situations that led to "bad things" and it even comprehends why I act and have acted in certain ways. But that little voice. She is there. Creating doubt in my value. Doubt in my past, present, and future. I want to hate her. But my thinking brain knows that she is me and I have long given up on hating her.  I love her. I want to protect her. I want her find a way to quiet that voice so she can live peacefully in her life of imperfection.

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