Seriously Jared – you only have ONE thing that drives you nuts about me? C’mon man. You cannot pick the topic anymore. Because I am going to look awful now!
I have lots. Most of them – probably all of them – are just about stupid things. Like where he puts (or doesn’t put) his shoes – coats – clothes – books – etc. When he says I DON’T KNOW to almost EVERYTHING – serious or not – I don’t know. Dude – you HAVE to know. When he doesn’t remember to do things that are done over and over and over again – like take out the garbage – throw empty water bottles away.
Now – I am sure that if Jared thought about it – another thing that drives him crazy about me is that i say things like ALWAYS and NEVER. You NEVER remember to take out the garbage. Why do you ALWAYS forget to tell me when you take money out. Things like that.
I’m a recovering perfectionist. It’s something that I don’t allow to control me anymore – but it’s hard and I work at it every single day.
When I was in high school – I would measure the distance between my hangers in my closet and the distance between my pictures on the wall – they had to be in even or whole numbers. Odd numbers are ugly to me. I hate them. Weird. I know. I also copied over my notes that I took in class every night – until they looked and felt right. The things on my dresser were in a certain place at a certain angle. My sister used to mess with me and I knew as soon as I walked in. I would get so mad and have to spend the night fixing everything. Samm and I shared a room our whole lives until my junior year in college – and she is NOT a perfectionist – or even close.
When things weren’t “perfect” – I would have anxiety attacks – but not like you would normally think. There was a time that I couldn’t swallow anything solid – so I only ate applesauce and things I could mash up and struggle to get down. No reason – a serious mental fixation thing. I thought I had a yawn stuck once – for quite a while. I couldn’t sleep lying down cus I thought my heart would stop. I would wonder how my body knew to breathe – then I would panic thinking that I forgot. That one still gets me when I get anxious.
ANYWAY –
Most of my pet peeves about Jared are because while he also struggles with being a perfectionist – he doesn’t struggle in the ways I do. He is messy. I am not. And it drives me nuts!
Do I let them build up from time to time and pile EVERYTHING he’s done “wrong” in the past week on top of him at once? No … not me. Never. Only if never means much more often that I should be. Then I wonder why it’s so hard building him up when all I’ve been doing is putting him down.
God is really working in me with the whole being in control issue – cus when you get down to it – that’s what perfectionism is about. Being in control. And I’m not. No matter how much I like to think I am.
I’m His child – living here on this earth to love and share His news. I’m Jared’s wife – loving him and encouraging him. Asking for forgiveness when I fail.
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