Posts from Yore: My Own Worst Enemy

My Own Worst Enemy, 10/4/13

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about life’s deeper meanings. My dad’s best friend from high school died this week, and he and my mom went up to Pittsburgh to attend the funeral and also to visit some places of significance to my dad: his old house, his favorite restaurant, etc. I called him Wednesday, the day of, to tell him again how sorry I was that his friend had passed. He is doing better now, but he regrets all the times he could have gone up to see him and didn’t. I tried to comfort him by reminding him that he had visited him about a month ago, and at least they had had that time together. Plus, as it turns out, my dad took the last picture of him, which will be a special memento forever. Even though I had never met this man, I became somewhat choked up when trying to reassure my dad. Thinking about how eventually I will experience both the losses of dear friends and my own death, how these experiences are inevitable, I felt sad. Even at 20, when life is traditionally just beginning, I have fear of and sadness regarding death, and these feelings rear their ugly heads.

And then, that same day, I tanked my micro exam. Well I don’t know that for a fact yet, but I have been stewing about it for 2 days. I redid all of the homework; I took the practice tests; I went to TA office hours and econ tutoring; I studied over the whole week before the exam. And yet, while taking it, I felt like it could have been the very first day of class. I am beyond frustrated with myself. How could I have flubbed up like this? How did I let this happen?

But why do I let perfectionism get to me this way? Thinking back on my dad and his friend, neither cared what the other’s GPA was. Their friendship wasn’t conditional. Then I thought about my own life: my courthouse friends didn’t want to be friends with me because of where I attend college or what score I got on all those “bubble tests” I had to take in high school. My ballet girls didn’t give me the cold shoulder because I don’t have perfect flexibility or technique. And I know they wouldn’t if I still had time to dance. My “school friends” (a broad category to cover the educational institutions I have attended) were/are there for me from my best papers to my worst geometry test. All of these people are my friends because, somehow, my weirdness does not scare them off. They care about me and value me as a person, and I love them immensely in return. We have similar interests; we share common experiences; and we enrich our friendships when we come back together from our separate journeys. Why can’t I be my own friend in the same way? The bar I set for myself will never be reachable, and yet, I catch myself trying to jump it at every moment. And rubbing salt in the wounds I sustain when I do fall.