A Perfectionist's Playground
Hi! First of all, I'm surprised that I even remembered the password for my blog. (I'm also surprised that it's the LEAST secure of the 3 passwords I use most frequently and that I'm including this juicy detail for all the sly hackers out there. GO AHEAD. SHOW UP NOW AND HACK MY BLOG I DARE YOU! No please don't.)
It's been a month since I've posted anything and I realized I'm doing the perfectionist thing where I'm waiting for the exact right thing to say instead of just SHOWING UP as I am (the whole point of this thing) and saying whatever feels the most right in that moment. I feel like I'm standing outside a game of double dutch waiting for the perfect time to jump in and it never comes--the ropes are moving too fast. As soon as you see an opening, it's already too late!
As a perfectionist, I find myself waiting on the sidelines thinking it's going to get easier to get into the game, but the ropes keep turning and turning and the only way to figure out how to do it is to try it and probably fail a few times. I'm afraid I'm going to get whacked on the head with a rope and end up face down on the playground all tangled up and everyone is going to laugh at me and not want to play with me anymore. Ah! You're afraid they won't want to play with you but you weren't even playing with them to begin with, Katie! You were just WATCHING them play. Maybe you could try asking one of them how they learned to jump rope! Or offer to hold the ropes and let someone else have a turn. Bring some snacks to share with the group. Keep trying until you get it. There are so many choices! But standing around and watching out of fear does not feel very good.
If we're going to continue this jump rope metaphor (and we are because I said so and I'm the boss of this blog), I feel like I get stuck turning my own individual jumprope. Jumping rope alone is a tiny bit fun, but not as fun as when you're playing with other people. It's comfortable and safe. You're neither relying on others nor are you disappointing others. If you mess up, you have no one to blame but yourself, but if you do a cool trick you have no one to share it with. Except maybe your personal trainer who forced you to do the jump roping in the first place. (But you're paying them to share it with you, so it probably feels dirty and wrong.)
Eventually all rope-jumping comes to an end. Much like this blog post. Also, everybody dies. What's the point of flying solo on the playground of life? I'm sick of standing over here in the corner twirling my own rope hoping someone will be dazzled by my skipping skills and ask me to play with them. "Showing up" means going up to the double dutch kids and asking if I can join in even though I haven't been doing it for very long and I'm a little bit scared. It means owning the fear, speaking it aloud, and moving through it to do the thing you want to do. In this moment, this just means making a post when I haven't done it in a while. I'm re-breaking the ice, re-giving myself permission to show up as exactly who I am and letting that be enough. And I'm sharing it with you! Consider this your formal invitation to play jump rope with me. We don't need to know what we're doing.