Existential dread. Overwhelming emotions. That feeling of drowning, but you didn’t even realize that you were on the boat that you fell off of over the ocean until you were neck deep with the salty spray splashing onto your face. All of the stress that you just wave off like it doesn’t exist until it slaps you in the face with the fact that you have to get the most important thing on your To Do List done tomorrow and it will take you three days to properly complete. Nah. What? Never happened. Not to me. -If you can’t tell that this is sarcastic, then you might need to replace whatever device that you were supposed to be reading this on because it is clearly broken… well maybe.

Today I realized that I hold myself to high expectations. I always expect perfection out of anything that I complete, even if it doesn’t seem like so to outsiders. I get so overwhelmed with sketching out exactly how things should work in my head about potential outcomes and ideas that I have never told anyone. For instance, I’m trying to figure out what to keep and what to get rid of before I move to Europe in less than 60 days. So I drag every item of clothing and each shoe that I own out of their hiding spaces that I may or may not have forgotten about. (This part drives my family insane. Warning. Read ahead at your own risk.) I just leave it there. I know some of what I’m going to for sure get rid of. Maybe that maxi-skirt I bought specifically to wear for a missions trip to Thailand that I haven’t seen in 2 years or worn in 3. Definitely getting rid of that. Oh that sweater that I still like but am not sure about the practicality of still owning? It gets into the purgatory pile. This is the pile that keeps increasing as I continue the process. Eventually I get to the “bottom” of the previous 5 foot pile of clothes and I have 1 foot of definitely keeping, 3 feet of purgatory, and 2 feet of to get rid of. This purgatory pile just sits there. But I can’t move it or I can’t continue the process of sorting through it all. Oh and if someone else goes through it “attempting” to help, they’ll just mess it up. So it stays. But one of the biggest problems I’ve had with the 3 feet of confusion is what should I do with the perfectly good clothing that I just don’t have a real usage for. I can’t throw it away because that would be ridiculously wasteful. But some of the clothes just aren’t in season or not worth the effort to attempt to sell. And for me to donate it, I need to drive like 45 minutes and it’s a lot of effort and requires a specific trip to town. So it sits. I’ve gone through this pile now, but this is just an example of how I just don’t want to screw up such a small detail as getting rid of clothes I probably will never wear again and shouldn’t store at my mom’s house for the indeterminate future.

I feel that there deserves a distinction between just giving up on something because the inability to address its complexities and the active thinking process that goes into starting a project and letting it sit for a bit before making a final decision. Some may just say that I’m just procrastinating on the inevitable and should just get it done immediately. Or maybe their suggestion would be to just put it away so you don’t have to look at the unsightly purgatory pile, whatever it may be. I’m not saying that procrastination doesn’t play a major role in my life, but I believe that we should lean into the uncomfortable piles of purgatory in our lives. The act of living with the hard decisions and experiencing the fullness of the reality of them is something that allows us to develop as human beings. We are not creatures just driven by nature. We have minds that can embrace the complexities of the human existence. Our nature drives us to just give up on something immediately because it’s hard. Well, I’m going to burst that pity party. Difficulty and hardships are where we learn what defines us. We should expect and push ourselves towards becoming who we are meant to become.

Perfection exists for a reason. It is the idealization that enables action. And it absolutely sucks when you fall short of it. No one likes disappointing themselves or others. However, if you want to be the best version of yourself, learn when to forgive and give grace to yourself and others. Sometimes life gets in the way and you will absolutely fail. Fall flat on your face and give yourself a nosebleed that won’t quit. The thing that determines your character is how you fail. Do you take those failures and troubleshoot the problems? Do you just take that as a sign that one failure means that you are the failure and should just give up on yourself? My goal in life has always been that I want to help people in the best way I can with my particular gifts. I’ve had so many failures along the journey. Many, many more will happen. And I’m sort of, kinda okay with that. My failures have had the opportunity to teach me because of the attitude I’ve taken with them. From thinking I was going to become a Pediatric Neurologist when I graduated high school 6 years ago to my current direction of getting my masters degree in International Humanitarian Action which should lead me towards the path of creating systems that will help people sustainably in crises around the world, I never thought I would be here in my wildest dreams.

We all have our own purgatory piles. Maybe it is pursuing a passion you gave up on because there was an obstacle originally about 2 months into getting into it. Maybe it’s actually listening to those emotions and feelings and thoughts that made you uncomfortable so you’ve been ignoring them for too long. Dwell with them. Understand the intricacies and motivations involved in all of the moving parts. And I’m only saying this from a place of weakness where my own purgatory piles have started amassing and attacking my mind. I’ve been working on a project I’m super excited about for the past few months and I’m only about one-third finished. My original deadline was to finish it by June 15th, but now its weeks past that and I’m nowhere near finished. But I believe that since I’ve had time to dwell with this and figure more of it out just in my mind, it will be of much better quality. But no one will really know until it’s finished with all the details. My new deadline is to finish it by September 1st and finalize all the details before September 15th. Much later than my original plan, but that’s okay. Maybe. Or maybe that drowning feeling is actually going to happen and I’m really under the fishes craving the oxygen from the sky too far away from me. Glub. Glub. Glub.