My whole identity relies on your perception that I am perfect. I have perfected the art of disguising my flaws. I have taught myself how to smile in just the right way so that you cannot see my crooked teeth. On the rare occasion that a genuine smile escapes my lips, the joy quickly retreats in fear that you have seen the real me.

Brene Brown, my authenticity guru, says “Perfection is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it is the thing that prevents us from taking flight.”

I have an entire lifetime of defect camouflaging experience. The realization has finally come to me that so much of my anxiety, defensive posturing, overthinking and perceived failures are the result of my dedication to my perfectionism. I have quit jobs because I thought I was about to be fired, only to discover in the exit interview that I was up for a promotion. Breakup conversations instigated by me in order to preempt what I thought was an inevitable dear john from my partner resulted in needless heartbreak. I have journals full of poetry, short stories, and a least one potential Pulitzer Prize winning novel that have never seen the light of day because they just weren’t “finished” yet.

As I begin what I am calling the final chapters of my life, armed with the better late than never epiphany that I am not and never will be perfect, my sincere hope is that as I expose all my imperfections to the light, that the world will be kinder to me than I have been to myself.