Reader,

I am on a journey of self-discovery. Y’know, usual stuff. Establishing my career, settling into a new relationship, finding a new (and much better) apartment, contemplating moving across the country and starting everything fresh. I’m a tangled mess of serious life decisions right now.

I’m a perfectionist. And know that isn’t something I’m bragging about. Actually, I strongly dislike it (I don’t use the word hate in my vocabulary it gives negative energy vibes that I don’t need) and denied it until it was impossible to ignore. That was around age 18. It takes time to grow, y’know?

I’m 24 now — shit, actually I’m 23, my birthday isn’t until May — and life is getting pretty serious, as I mentioned. College is over now, settling back in the hometown was a year-long struggle but is finally coming to its end, and I’m in my first serious relationship. That’s also long-distance. Yeah. Navigating life is pretty strenuous for me right now, as I am sure it is for you, Reader. And these life-changing decisions have hung in the air waiting for me to move on them, but with perfectionism comes indecisiveness. So much thought must go into each important decision, but when is too much thought, well, too much? When do I say, “enough is enough, Zara. Make a fucking decision! TODAY!” Well, that day was today, actually.

Once again not ready for bed — even though I love sleep more than anything in the world as a Taurus — when bedtime came round, I decided not to force myself into my freshly cleaned sheets before I was ready. I would just toss and turn and wrinkle a perfectly good hour of sleep once I finally dozed off. So I chose to do something I used to abide by religiously but sort of fell off doing once I finished undergrad in 2020. I opened my Google calendar app and organized my life. You should know there wasn’t much to organize as my life currently consists of going to my 10–5 job and then returning to my hotel room (as my apartment floods every month but that’s a whole other post, Reader) where my 2 furry friends, Miko and Moon, wait for me with loving nuzzles. Then I mindlessly watch tv, FaceTime my boyfriend for hours until one of us decides going to bed is more desirable than staying on the phone.

Then I enter my solitude of restlessness as he’s somewhere drifting into his dreams. Reader, I have the best dreams. Some of the craziest dreams. It’s why I love sleep so much. My own dystopian world exists in my subconscious mind and I enjoy the adventures so much, I’ve mastered the art of lucid dreaming. I explore the highest mountain ranges, dual with my favorite witches and wizards, run through jurassic park, or revisit my wild college nights out in the streets with the girls. It’s my perfect personal world of all things me. Crazy quirks included. But I can’t get to that point with my nonsensical overthinking and life contemplating and pondering and — ughhh. Reader, this cycle needs to end. How do I stop obsessing over all things big and small? What is the vaccine to perfectionism? A virus plaguing my body and filling it with analysis paralysis where it’s impossible to even decide to go to bed.

I clearly have a lot of self work to do. And yes, I’m in therapy. And yes, my therapist fucking rocks. I mean, she gets me. I have no complaints, for real. But therapists aren’t supposed to seal all of your cracks. They’re more like band aids than they are spackle. They can give you the materials to patch those cracks but if you suck at getting shit right, you’re gonna have some ugly walls that need to be knocked right back down. While my therapist is completely in tune with me, she can’t fight my battles and win. And she can’t give me the secret answer because there isn’t one. I have to do all of the work. The discovery, the planning, the execution, the reanalyzing, all of the gritty things adults never want to do! Of course, I’m not completely alone. I have support from plenty of loved ones. But decision-making is a lonely task for one person. You. Or in this case, me. What if my one decision was the wrongest decision of my fucking life. I’d never decide on anything again. So then, I do nothing. I remain the same.

Not this time, Reader. This time, I have doors of opportunities in front of me. All of this freshness. All of this newness. All of these possible discoveries and learned lessons. I enjoy that shit! That’s what makes shit worth it! Y’know? Evolving, learning, changing, moving, stopping, going, trying. Like what else do we have to do on this fucking planet? Might as well evolve! But this time I’m evolving out of indecisiveness. I’m moving out of perfectionism and into, not realism, but acceptance. I accept where I am today. And not in the corny “I wouldn’t be who I am today if it weren’t for my past”. Like obviously that’s the way time works. I mean acceptance that this is as mundane as life truly is and it doesn’t need to be any more exciting. This shits stressful enough.

Can you relate to me, Reader? Am I alone in this cyclical hell? I know I’m not, because perfectionists exists everywhere. But we hide in plain sight because we know we’re crazy to ever think we’ll master something perfectly before we die. But still, it’s involuntary and a serious pain in the ass to walk around with. I’m not giving up on my self-discovery of simpleness. I’m actually kinda thrilled.