Perfection

A patient and I were talking about the idea of perfection. The patient hates themselves because of their need for perfection, as their parents did not tolerate differences in them. 

Perfect

The only perfect thing I ever knew was the sky. No matter what drama was displayed across the sky, I knew the sky to be perfect. The drama was always confusing then became associated with the terror so I quickly forgot what the sky truly looked like. I couldn’t look without squinting (until nowish). The drama was at first to do with when the clouds were grey, the sky was a perfect shade of light blue with cotton patches spread just enough not to mess up the perfect sky but to give it character. Then the patches of white cotton changed to grey blobs, which led to darkening of the sky and I was confused and wanted to look away. Then there were days it rained, then the day I noticed hail.

The hail was the next drama from the perfect sky, which I associated with the man above in the sky, he was throwing rocks at us but why? I thought he loved us and wanted to protect us. I would forget this question as I approached age 6 or 7, whenever it was that my first life ended. My first life ended at sunset. I was tricked I guess, I didn’t know what I was looking at and was too afraid to wonder. I was a child who knew you don’t question adults if you need to survive, but I knew I could question the ground, what grew from the ground, and wonder about what lies out of reach, up or below. The biggest drama in the sky was always the sun. Its arrival and departure were always so fucking dramatic. In a world where electricity was either not yet there or seen as a privilege, then became optional (we had lights indoors every other day at some point), the sun was the one that decided what was possible each day. 

Outside the drama in the sky, the sun was the first one to teach me about time. Time was important long before the sky split itself open and I fell into the ocean. At first, there was waiting. From age 3 to 12, I was waiting for my mother to return. At first, I waited a week and she came, but eventually waiting a week turned into waiting for years. I waited on the veranda. Eventually, I noticed the shadows on the ground. The waiting on my mother was held by the shadows at some point. I don’t recall how I waited for her before I noticed the shadows. I remember waiting on the veranda, looking out in front of me and trying to see where the shadows were, but it was too early in the morning to have the shadows in the front of the house. The shadows tended to show up around noon because of the way the house was positioned.

At one point I remember waiting early in the morning while wondering at the same time about this boy who was sitting at the entrance next door: there was boy that would never have a single piece of clothing that kept him warm. The boy sat at the entrance to warm up in the morning sun. I had sat with him at times, but I’m not sure why I didn’t do that more often. Why didn’t I open the front gates and sit with him? I thought of the boy as gross because he was not worried about how clean he was and being clean was the most I aimed for each day and yet never achieved. I feel guilty now that I did not spend each morning with the boy. His mother was a few houses down and maybe I didn’t empathize with him because of that. I know every person in that village is either lucky to be dead or still suffering in a different way. The ones like my family, however, they’re suffering is projected outwards onto others. They cannot suffer themselves on earth because they’re too busy making others suffer, but I know deep down that they never really lived a day and that helps me let go of my desire or need for revenge. Life has its own form of justice and I only needed to find it for myself.

In my past life, the sky being perfect was the only idea I needed to hold to carry me through the rest of my life. This idea was concrete in my inner child’s phantasy (Ph not F), which was “I will work hard to be good enough for the love and protection of the man above.” Lucky for me, I found my freedom from him, too. I wonder what the patient’s perfectionism is truly about and how it will get resolved, but we will walk the path to discovering them one session at a time.