On My Heart: My first year and perfectionism

It’s been hard for me to articulate how I feel about my first year in my role as a mother. I love my daughter so fiercely and my feelings are very clear about her and her life. But my feelings about myself have been muddled with disappointment and a little confusion too. Did I do well in this first year, or did I fail? Or was it a little bit of both?

 

I have always had a streak of perfectionism in me, and it’s a been a struggle my entire life. It has dictated my choices, my actions, even my relationships.  Perfectionism tends to stem (at least for me) from a sense of wanting approval, and that desire for approval comes from forgetting who I am and forgetting that I am already loved. My identity should reside not in how I look to others, but who I am to God and my loved ones. I have moments where I feel freed of it, and free in who I am, but as the chapter of parenthood began last August, this part of my personality became larger than I expected. It took over whole sections of my heart and seeped into other facets of my life where it had not been before and it almost made me crazy in the process.

 

Thankfully, there is little control with a newborn. I could not control my daughter’s sleep or eating patterns, her mood, or her budding personality. I could not control any of the circumstances that would throw a wrench into my ordered world  – sure I could plan and organize and anticipate, but there were things that happened that I had no preparation for and it was the best thing to ever happen to me. The perfectionist in me had created a system of rules and judgments and expectations, but when things were really, really hard and I was exhausted, or inpatient, or confused or my daughter was overtired, or teething, or sick, I did what worked to make it easier on both of us. I broke most, if not all, of my silly, unrealistic rules. Sometimes my actions disappointed me, but most times I felt relieved from the pressure of living up to this image I had created for myself. I could not be the mother I dreamed up, this perfect woman on a pedestal, no matter how hard I tried.

 

The breaking point of all of this came halfway through the first year of my daughter’s life, during a night where she was sick and woke up multiple times, crying and longing for her mama. As I held her in my arms and paced back and forth in her room in the dark, I was overcome with exhaustion and impatience due to her season of sickness and thought, “Am I a good mother? I don’t feel like a good mother.” She continued to cry softly and I joined her, hot tears streaking my cheeks and falling onto the top of her head. I so desperately wanted to be good at this thing I had waited so long to do, but I felt like I was failing left and right. And I hate failing, so I decided in that moment to change my definition of good.

 

I wanted to be more than good. Good was not enough. So I decided I wanted to be loving, patient, fun, balanced, and realistic. I knew I couldn’t be all of these all of the time, but it gave me a sense of relief and peace to know that I could aim to be any one of these things and it would be right for my daughter. Good felt like perfect, and no matter what I did I would never be perfect.

 

My sense of perfectionism died a slow, drawn-out and dramatic death as Brighton grew. At times it was extremely painful to let go of all the things I felt were so important to my sense of identity – a clean home, a well-behaved child, a picture perfect marriage, the ability to juggle multiple things at once, even looking pretty and put together. None of those items make me who I am and yet I clung to them like a lifeline through the storm of post-partum anxiety, sadness as I went back to work full-time, my changing relationship with Matt and the frenzy of new motherhood.

 

The first year of parenthood was exhausting, messy, filled with ridiculous, illogical guilt, but also hysterical and full of joy and love. Brighton was my miracle baby, the catalyst for a renewal of my faith in God. Her life brought yet another constant mirror to my world, where I couldn’t escape seeing myself for who I really am, flaws and all. Whether she wanted to become this or not, she became another iron in my life, sharpening me day by day, reminding me of what really matters. That perfect mother I wanted to be does not matter. I’m perfect for Brighton, and that is enough.