I’ve been called that a time or two! It’s never said in a complimentary way. Even as a child I caught the subtle nuances of derision. Except I didn’t quite know why that tone was being used on me. My harsh environment prompted more and ever more the perfect response, the perfect action, the perfect little girl.

“The road to hell is paved by perfectionists working with grains of sand. Uh-oh…missed a spot.” Sarah Ban Breathnach in her book “Simple Abundance” captured my life in that one succinct sentence. I discovered her marvelous book of comfort and joy in 1996 and am still uncovering nuggets that glow with more than the gold within.

In 1996 after reading the daily snippets for several weeks I wrote: “To me a beacon of my never-ending, ever-bending path of self-discovery, self-improvement.” I recognized my own destructive well-worn path of perfectionism. The next year I wrote, “What wonders I discovered on my journey this year! What truths heretofore undiscovered! Authentic self–you ARE there! Welcome.”

Now I am well down my path. I have taken many turns, some only to discover I’m going the wrong way. Thank goodness the Creator has given us the freedom to at any point on our journey change our trajectory. Perfectionism still reaches it’s subtle yet strong tentacles around my thinking, my doing, yet I recognize it more quickly now. I see it there in the darkness ever beckoning.

Over the years I have learned the difference between being a perfect and being a good housekeeper. Of being perfect and being a good mother, a good wife, a good Christian. I can distinguish the difference between having a clean house and obsessing over a pillow lying at the wrong end of the couch.

I don’t work on Sundays. We each have to define work in our own way, in a pattern that fits our own level of discipleship. If the dishwasher is full of clean dishes I will berate myself in an impeccable perfectionist tone that I should have emptied it Saturday so it would be ready for Sunday’s dirty dishes. When this happens, I slightly rinse Sunday’s dirty dishes and stack them in a little plastic tub I keep in the sink, cover them with a clean dish cloth to await Monday.

This last Sunday somehow produced a lot of dishes. (My husband cooks on Sunday and he loves to cook…i.e. dirty lots of dishes.) Usually, I allow some time on Monday morning before work to take care of Sunday’s dishes. But, yesterday, I was so engrossed writing I totally forgot about the kitchen sink. When I went towards the back door to leave, I was appalled at the piles of unwashed plates and flatware and pans in the sink. I felt as unclean as they looked.

As I drove to work it continued to obsess me. I have a strict mode of conduct I expect myself to follow and I had failed. I quickly voice-texted my retired husband and asked that he leave the dishes for me; it would only have multiplied my guilt if he had executed my responsibility. Having done this Little Miss Perfect was able to go on about her day and not give the dishes another thought.

Yes, I know many of you are thinking “well it wouldn’t have hurt the husband to do the dishes.” True. But, in my world he cooks, I clean. (Mostly). I balance my Christian ethics of honoring the Lord on His Sabbath and honoring my spouse; in my heart I had done both by not cleaning up the kitchen on Sunday and not allowing my husband to do it on Monday. You may have had an alternative way to silence the accuser, and that’s ok, too. We all travel our own paths.

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.” Anne Lamott

I, however temporarily, had silenced the voice of the oppressor. He would have been delighted if I had fixated on the dishes all day. Each of us must choose which prompting we will listen to.  Each of us must choose to be a daughter of God or a slave of the adversary. Each of us must choose our path.