It snowed here this morning. Can you believe it? Those white flakes, while pretty, not only brought home how close the end of this year is, but also reminded me of how many projects I still want to get done before 2019 – and all the holiday stuff still to come. Urgh. Wish me luck?
When I consider all my tasks still unfinished, I realize I’m really not cured of my perfectionism. Maybe we’d better consider me a “Recovering Perfectionist”. I’m not there yet, but I’m getting better. And, I truly owe it all to becoming legally blind.
How, you ask? Let’s use this blog for example. As my vision loss progressed my posts over the last several years became few and far between. There are a lot of reasons for the decrease; learning how to use adaptive software, figuring out the adaptive software won’t work on my aged computer, buying a new computer and figuring out how to use it. Finding out the adaptive software STILL won’t work on that computer. My website provider went out of business and every simple, little thing I used to be able to do without thinking became a high-stress, multilevel project. Add in the multitude of changes in each and every platform when it came to how to draft and post and well, it really felt like I was never going to figure this all out.
But behind all the frustration was also the knowledge that, with my new circumstances, I wouldn’t be doing it RIGHT, and that meant I’d be better off doing nothing until I figured it all out. It’s been ages in internet years, and guess what? I still fumbling about.
As an author, there are umpteen resources across the net telling us how we should be posting on social media and furthering our careers. One of the biggest must do’s? Using graphics. Images are king. Doesn’t matter if it’s a blog or Facebook, even Twitter, what used to be the land of 140 characters (perfect for writers), has gone to the image-heavy dark side. I understand why, but frankly, images and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms right now.
All of this, plus more, left me feeling incompetent and paralyzed. I have been a Type A, make a plan, stick to the plan, thou shalt not deviate from the plan kind of gal my whole life. Becoming blind? That wasn’t part of the plan.
I pretty much disappeared from online life. I’d think about dipping a toe into the internet waters and then wham! I’d run into my big old perfectionist wall. Because, I still can’t do things right. Or the way I want. But thanks to my blindness, I’ve learned a lot about coping in other areas of life, and hopefully, that’s going to translate to my writing career and social media life.
So, I’m focusing on letting go of doing things perfectly and hoping you, my online friends, won’t care that formatting errors may abound, typos are sure to be missed, and my posts won’t have amazing graphics all based around my online brand. My life offline is best described as rough and raw, and it looks like my online life is going to be the same. Ignore the mess and come say hi. I promise to be here.