Embracing Imperfection
I’m not a therapist and I don’t play one on TV, but I believe perfectionism in writing and life can cause pain and anxiety resulting in the avoidance of anything with the potential to fail. And, I would argue that anything worth doing has the potential to go wrong, the wheels fall off the bus, the wedding is cancelled, the publisher says no, the soufflé collapses, the world does not find you adorable, deserving, or brilliant. I have been fired, twice divorced, rejected, humiliated, and disappointed. When I was in therapy decades ago, describing my latest heartbreak and tragic failure, the therapist said, “You were disappointed.” This statement made me want to stand and stomp my feet on her Oriental carpet. I didn’t want to be disappointed.
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Safe Spaces
When I returned to graduate school in the late nineties to obtain a high school English certificate, I had been teaching in various college settings for over a decade. My demographics ranged from a class of Haitian immigrants, mainly men, who were trying to pass a basic English exam to continue their free education through the City University of New York, to unemployed Londoners of various ages and professions to the largely White, wealthy students at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The class that introduced me to the pitfalls and triumphs of being allowed to have honest conversations, or to at least listen…
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“Adult” is Not a Pejorative
Recently I was on a volunteer literacy Zoom meeting, a group founded by a famous writer who is now, like me, in his sixties. One of the insults aimed at wrong headed guidance to teenagers was “adulting.” This caused me to speak up and suggest they stop using a word that is, in reality, a phase of life that almost every child I have taught wants to reach. Not to be dull or boring or weirded out by awful things like balloon mortgages, income tax, and the need to floss but so they can be independent and make choices based on lawful behavior and their own dreams. Peter Pan is a cautionary story, not one that paints paradise as a place where children remain children forever. Tinkerbell protects Peter from reality and Peter causes great harm by thoughtless, irresponsible, and selfish behavior. He is a child and in a grown man that is a terrible thing.
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