The Bathroom Mirror Conversations

            I think I’m learning annoying lessons about myself.

            Not that the lessons are annoying. They need to be learned and appreciated and practiced upon.

            But the learning part is annoying.

            I like to think of myself as imperfectly perfect.

            Meaning I like to tell myself weird little things like “You are perfect because you’re weird,” or “Perfect is boring, so you are the most interesting person on the planet,” or “It’s because you are so creative that your brain thinks so differently than everyone else’s.”

            You know, the things you tell yourself in the bathroom mirror after you’ve cried your eyes out in the shower.

            I tell myself these things and I pretend I feel infinitely better.

            But what I should be telling myself is, “How were you wrong in that instance? How were you selfish? How were you ungrateful or rude or obnoxious and didn’t even realize it?”

            Let me pause for a moment and say something that needs to be said, even if the only person reading this is my mommy and some random person who accidentally clicked on this link on The Facebook.

            I don’t talk about these things.

            Most people who know me will tell you that once you get to know me, I talk so much you start wishing I’d shut up.

            I love conversing. It’s one of my favourite past times.

            I love conversing about my favourite books and my current tv show obsession and what movies completely changed my life and how this certain journalist made me see things in a whole new light or how much I adore my cat The Cat Gracie Poo because if I were a cat I would probably be exactly like her and we share a special bond because we are both grumpy old women who like affection.

            I love sharing these kinds of things with people because I think it can make me sound intelligent and sophisticated and odd, but in that good kind of way where you like talking to me because it’s a guessing game with what’s about to come out of my mouth.

            In summation, I love feeling clever.

            What I don’t like feeling is vulnerable.

            I love it when someone is vulnerable with me. I love it more than anything when someone opens up to me and shares things going on in their life because it makes me feel loved and trusted. It makes me feel like they need me.

            But I’m not very good about it being the other way around.

            I want you to think of me as that imperfect perfect. I don’t want you to think of me as just imperfect.

            So I internalize and grow on my own. I don’t like sharing that with people. This is maybe my biggest fault as a human, and I am only just now seeing how this has affected my life, how I have had broken friendships because I refused to be vulnerable with them, how I have let myself be pushed around and used because I wasn’t honest about what I needed, I let it always be about them.

            This is where I come back to the part where I said I need to be telling myself different things in the bathroom mirror.

            I am not perfect, and that is okay.

            What is not okay is when I refuse to do anything about not being perfect, when I stop striving to be perfect.

            I don’t mean perfect in the way society sees perfection.

            I don’t mean I need to strive to be as gorgeous as I can, or as smart as possible, or as alluring as possible, or as rich or happy as human standards can take me.

            I mean I should be striving to be perfect like Jesus was perfect.

            When a friend opens up and tells me that I came across as cold or rude, I shouldn’t look in the mirror and say, “She doesn’t understand that that’s just how I am. I am precise and professional in conflict and she needs to deal with that.”

            I should look in the mirror and say, “Where is she coming from? What can I take from her point of view? How can I work on my delivery and how can I work on expressing my needs and desires in a kind, Godly manner?”

            When a coworker gives me unwanted attention or won’t leave me alone, I shouldn’t look in the mirror and say, “It’s okay for me to be a witch with a capital b to them because their actions are unwanted and unwelcomed and I have every right to be a jerk.”

            I should look in the mirror and say, “Are there behaviours and actions I need to change around them because I am misleading them? How can I forcefully but still gracefully tell them to back off? How can I approach them and politely ask them to leave me alone instead of just ignoring them and hope that works?”

            When a conversation goes differently than I anticipated, or an interaction with someone goes not as I perfectly planned it in my head, I shouldn’t look in the mirror and say, “They just don’t get me. I wish they would adhere to the dialogue I wrote out in my head.”

            I should look in the mirror and say, “What can I learn about them through that interaction? How can I grow in their friendship through how that conversation went? How can I better prepare to let conversations flow as they will and not micromanage all the time?”

           These lessons and the things I should be telling myself afterwards leave me vulnerable. If I am going to act on the lessons I should be learning through the interactions I’m having these days, then it should leave me feeling naked in a way.

            I have been going to a lot of job interviews lately. Which means I have come to master that unavoidable yet torturous question, “So tell me about yourself.”

            One thing that I say in my rehearsed speech when asked this question is that I’ve discovered one of my top strengths is connectivity. I say this answer because the university I attended made us take one of those StrengthsQuest test and then proceeded to hammer it into our skulls that knowing our results would make us fuller, better people.

            Connectivity was one of my strengths on the test, so I say it in interviews.

            How I relate this to jobs is by saying I want to connect the community to a brand or company, et cetera et cetera.

            My point in bringing this up is to say that that is not the extend of connectivity.

            Connectivity implies that I like CONNECTING with people. Which I one hundred percent do.

            But connection requires two willing participants.

            If I truly want to connect with someone, I must be willing to allow THEM to connect with ME, not just the other way around.

            I think I’m learning that it’s okay to be scared crapless of this process. It’s okay to be nervous when sharing intimate details about yourself with someone. People are mean and selfish and rude sometimes and can bite.

            But when I truly connect with someone, when I timidly and nervously share a secret or desire or need with someone and they respond in a mighty way by accepting me and helping me grow as a person because of that sharing, man, that is a beautiful thing.