Imperfect Devilled Eggs.
It’s the morning of my son’s first birthday and I’ve been prepping all week for the most perfect Sesame Street celebration anyone has ever been to. Ya know, because normal people attend children’s birthday parties and ruthlessly judge mom’s ability to pull off a top notch party, right? They do in my mind, at least. We’re down to the wire and I’ve managed not to jump the gun, like usual, and prep everything early; leaving it out to melt, defrost, overheat, dry up, etc. I take my perfectly halved and rinsed hard boiled eggs out of the fridge and my perfectly blended piping bag full of filling and start perfectly placing them in my devilled egg tray… of course one SPECIFICALLY made for devilled eggs, and what happens.. I don’t have enough halves. See, while prepping this hors-d’oeuvre earlier in the week, not all of my eggs were up to my standard. Anything less than.. you guessed it… perfect, didn’t make the cut and went straight into the trash. I knew I had boiled more than enough eggs, so I wasn’t worried about a few strays. A quick basic math lesson could have persuaded me into keeping one of those imperfect eggs, but I was confident I was in the clear.
There was a time in my life when this scenario would have sent me spiraling and I WOULD have boiled one single egg in record time to keep up with this illusion of having my life together. This time was different though. There was no rush of panic. There was no fear of being judged. There was nothing that could have made me care about being one egg short. I just sat there for a second staring at this “unfinished tray,” as a former self would have referred to it as, and thought, “oh well!” I set the tray out and you know what happened? I survived. No one noticed and if they did, they certainly didn’t care. And I survived.
It's interesting to witness two sides of you clashing as you move through healing. Healing over devilled eggs, Natalie, really? YES REALLY. Because there was the me leading up to the day of the party, scaling Pinterest, focusing on every detail and the me who didn’t care at all on the day of. It sounds like two entirely different people! And it kind of is…
My need to be “perfect” was not something I was born with. It was something I learned in childhood. Somewhere along the lines, I had taken all evidence provided to me and concluded that to be accepted was to get it right, and the more “right” you are, the more praise you receive. Those neuropathways cut so deep, eventually your entire personally melds to it. In school, friendships, relationships, extracurricular activities, etc. Learning to be perfect is to be accepted means it’s also possible to UN-learn. I’ve spent so many years on my therapist’s couch as he’s taught me different variations of that same concept. Ten years later, who knew it would be one damn boiled egg that caused me to praise MYSELF for letting go of this “need” for a moment.
Now, will I stress myself out before the next birthday party? Probably. But perhaps TWO boiled eggs will survive the wrath of my perfectionism.
“Learn who you are. Unlearn who they told you to be.” -S. Menutt
