Letting go...

I'm the first to admit it. I'm a recovering perfectionist. Those of you who know me in real life who didn't know me when I was younger will laugh. "Recovering?" you'll ask. Yes. Compared to what I once was, I am recovering.

I have learned to live with the phrase 'good enough for who it's for'. Occasionally I find myself falling back into the old trap. I don't want to go there. I had ulcers as a teen. I dropped an advanced math class because it screwed up my GPA in high school. There are times I still regret taking the damned class because without that A- I would have been valedictorian. Does it matter? Not really...well, only to me.

I left college about half way through. I was tired. Mostly I had worn myself out with perfectionism in high school. My college grades were appalling because I just couldn't care anymore. I left partially because I was so disgusted with myself.

Now years later (okay, okay - decades later) I went back. I'm enrolled at Iowa (go Hawks) and am working on finishing my bachelor's. I don't need this for my career. I'm established now and most people don't know that I don't have a degree. This is something I want to do just because my true self - the perfectionist - can't stand not having it completed.

My grades since resuming have been back to an acceptable level. I have one A- and hate that. It ruined a 4.0. Of course, when combined with the grades from my previous life, the GPA isn't a 4.0, but still... Tonight I took an exam that I blew. It was not at all what I expected and I had not studied what I should have. Part of me wants to throw up.

Breathe, breathe...D's get degrees...D's get degrees...