“It’s okay to be frustrated. You’re learning something new. I can help you. Let’s try again.”
I repeated these words as I held and rocked C in my lap. Just moments before she had been working on her homework packet and I had been cleaning out the guinea pigs’ cage. Her little, high-pitched voice had called out to me as I was scooping up pellet-sized poop into a bag to ask, “Is this right?”
I craned my neck from my seat on the floor to see the paper she held up. She had circled: rectangle, circle, triangle, rectangle; circle, triangle, rectangle; circle, triangle. “No, try again. Make sure each set of the pattern starts with the same shape.”
She sighed her signature sigh, which to be accurate is more like a half groan/half roar. With an eraser in her dimpled hand, she began undoing her work. Half a minute later, she asked again, “Is this right?”
The process repeated again. “No, try again,” I replied.
Groan/roar. Erase. Groan/roar. Erase.
It was after probably the fourth cycle that I saw C plop herself down on the tile floor and burst into tears.
Oh dear.
Fortunately I had finished refilling the guinea pig cage with clean bedding by then. I closed the metal door, rushed to the sink to wash my poopy hands and then hurried over to stop the waterworks.
As I sat there comforting a very distraught kindergartener, I couldn’t help but smile. Yes, the situation was a dire one – the homework paper had been written on and erased so many times that it was now covered in gray eraser bits – but thankfully it was an easy one to fix. After letting C belt out her tears (her wails could almost be categorized as melodic), I turned her around in my lap and resumed my pep talk.
“It’s okay to be frustrated. You’re learning something new. I can help you. Let’s try again.”
I spoke those words to C that day, but I could very well have been speaking them to myself. Because it was only a few days ago that I felt like plopping down on the floor and wailing my own version of a cantata.
I had been sitting in the dark by the light of my laptop (in the wee hours of the morning) and attempting to set up a website. I had been calculating and recalculating the money I have spent on my new business venture and wondering when/if I will be able to recoup the costs. I had been frustrated and stressed out by the tasks I still need to complete and the timelines I want to meet.
In short, I was having a (recovering) perfectionist moment. A total “I have to have things done the way I want, but things are not working out right now, so can I crawl into a hole and hide?!” moment.
Hmm. These “moments” are much cuter when a five year old has them. (Side note: C is not a perfectionist; she was just being a five year old.)
Thankfully, hubby was my voice of reason. The next day when I poured out my frustrations to him, he basically said the same thing I would later tell C: “This is your first time doing this, just learn as you go. Don’t worry about the money. Just enjoy the process.”
I wanted to respond, “Enjoy the process, my foot!”, but instead I sighed my signature sigh, which meant gritting my teeth and half growling/half roaring. (Hm, I think I see a trend here, LOL). I picked myself up, dusted off my bum (figuratively speaking) and made the decision to throw my timelines, expectations and all the “shoulds” I had given myself out the window.
So here I am a few days later still reminding myself to breathe deeply, massaging the stress knots out of my neck and shoulders and saying a lot of prayers.
Most of all, I’m trying to focus on being, creating, enjoying, and NOT stressing because …
The song, “Under Pressure” could have been my theme song this week. 😛 Here it is sung by Queen and David Bowie (I’m dating myself again with this song choice, haha).
How do you deal with the pressure of perfection?
P.S. C finished that homework problem correctly on her next try and with a triumphant smile on her face. 🙂
