Where I overshare

I find myself saying---over and over---these two words.

I need.

I need to stop procrastinating.

I need to be a better organizer.

I need to learn to play the ukulele.

I need to stick to a yoga routine.

I need to learn more about history.

I need to try to become a more patient person.

I need to decide what I want to do with my life.

I need to truly and honestly look at myself and decide “who am I.”

I need to try to make pasta from scratch.

I need to do this, or do that before tomorrow.

            Before next week.

                        By the end of next year.

                                    Before I turn thirty.

                                                Before we have another child.

                                                            Before I grow old and am unable.

                                                                        Before I am dead.

I wonder how many times I say these two words to myself in a week, in a day, in an hour.

Probably too many would be my guess.

My friends say to me say from time to time, “You are too hard on yourself.”  To which my brain rather automatically says, “No, you are not hard enough!  How can anyone accomplish anything if they settle for who they are and with what they are doing?  Aim higher.”

I don’t know what I am afraid of.  That I’ll become boring or worse yet, normal.  That I’ll become someone I despise or I’ll fall into the same old routine day in and out.  Regardless, those two words have evolved into almost a sort of mantra, pushing me to ----as I thought, to be better.  To be someone I admire.  Maybe even someone I am not.

Now that I think about it, though, where is the line between striving to be better and never being satisfied?  Am I pushing myself to achieve or pushing myself into a constant state of ill content?  Sadly, I am worried I am doing the latter.  When I really think about it, I find some way to diminish even the big accomplishments in my life.  If I even allow myself to consider something an “accomplishment.”

Why?  What good does it do?  Does it push me to change?   Make myself into the person that I will be satisfied with?

If only I was more flexible.

If only my hair were a little less unruly.

If only I knew more about Greek mythology.

If only I knew more random useless facts.

If only I had a better memory for things I have read.

                                                Maybe then things would be perfect.

Now, I know this doesn’t make any logical sense.  Being fluent in another language isn’t going to improve much.  However, I am having trouble making this change.  Becoming less of a crazy, overachieving, neurotic person that is.

Part of me worries that it isn’t possible.  That this is just “who I am” and I need to learn to deal with it.

Part of me thinks it can be done and that maybe I’m just too afraid of “who I really am” to try it.

Part of me worries about the distinction between something that I can change about myself and this  just being something else to add to my “I need” list.

Part of me is angry that I am even thinking about this when I have a super long list of things that I need to be doing and that the ukulele I just borrowed isn’t going to learn to play itself so get back to work.

Sigh.

 Who knows?  I really hope that most people deal with this and I’m not one fingerless glove and a shopping cart away from being committed.