Am I Being a Perfectionist? And If I Am… Can You Help Me?

It’s a thin line between passionate and psychotic editing

Artwork by the author (Agnes) I’m doing a custom illustration giveaway if you’re interested!

Perfectionism has been labeled poison for a while now. Once an acceptable “flaw” to list in job interviews, it got cancelled. Perfectionism is a procrastination pretending to be something it’s not. Perfectionism is the enemy of done. Practice does not make perfect: practice makes better. Perfect is no longer the goal.

Lesson learned. I understand. I agree. And still…

I am maybe a teeny tiny bit petrified that I’ve let some perfectionism in. I don’t know how it happened. I was guarding against it, I promise. And still…

I am (finally? still?) in the final stretch of my poetry book sprint. I feel like I should be screaming with joy, and instead I’m torn.

There’s a part of me that is thrilled. I received the print copy yesterday! It is a hold-it-in-your-hands real book. 114 texts, more than 70 hand-drawn illustrations. Countless hours. It started as a few heartbroken poems in a notebook and became a book with poems about love, and heartbreak, and friendship, and writing.

There’s a little part of me that is spiraling. It’s a little voice in an annoying pitch and frequency that goes something like this: That poem isn’t as tight as…