perfect little girl.

This week while cleaning my apartment top to bottom, I was reminded that my integrity is directly related to how I feel about myself. When I’m on top of things, I am confident and happy and feel like I can do anything. When my laundry sits around for a week or two without being folded, I feel like a failure.

My attachment to being ‘perfect’ is what makes me unhappy here. And it shows up in different places. When I eat candy, I feel awful about myself, which makes me crave more candy for comfort. This is what leads me to live in extremes a lot of the time. I feel like I can make no exceptions because when I do, it’s all downhill from there.

One sock on the floor, and my apartment will look like shit in 2 days. The exception breaks the rule.

The question is, what is the pattern I need to break here? Is it that I must train myself to be clean? Or is it that I have to stop relating to myself as someone who notoriously gives up? My instinct tells me it’s the latter.

I woke up this morning buzzing with things to write about. So many ideas flowing through my head and so little time to get them all down on paper (well, internet). De-cluttering my apartment seems to have created the space for new ideas to flow in. Like any other creative person, I need to clean off my desk before I can get to work. 

If every day could start off with the clean slate I have right now, life would be a lot easier. Giving up on good habits is definitely a pattern I am committed to breaking. 

So my homework for this weekend is: 

1) Write a list of things I notoriously ‘give up’ on

2) Over the next month, pick one per week to not give up.

3) Notice if I relate to myself differently

It's a good start, right? Well at the very least it won't be a scramble to clean every time I invite someone over. A victory in itself.