For the over achievers

This afternoon, I sent the following to a friend.

I thought you might use this if you’re feeling like you have to be good at everything. You don’t.

This is what I wrote:

Friend, (I used the person’s name in the text—I didn’t call them “Friend”), I have been working hard in fencing, but I missed most of September because I had so much personal loss

.This is my fencing bag in the back of the car.

100% when I return I will get maximum support and love.

But today…

Today, I drove up Hines Drive—beautiful all the time but particularly so this time of the year—and pulled over to eat a sandwich and get ready.

And I burst into tears. I sobbed, really.

I’m tired of being brave. I’m tired of wanting to be seen as being really good at things I am learning and being the best and of always pushing to get there.

When do I get to be just a beginner?

*deep exhale *

I’m new at this sport, relatively so. Many of my competitors and colleagues have been fencing since they were six.

I’m a champion on the kenpo mat and I’m trying to immediately become a fencing champion without enjoying being a beginner. That doesn’t work. They don’t go together.

And when I realized this I cried and forgave the little girl who had to achieve to get noticed and respected in a family that spent a lot of attention on others.

I don’t need to do that ever again, ever.

I can be a beginner and not know what the f*ck I’m doing and take the classes and flirt with my classmates and maybe have fun.

After realizing this, I finished my sandwich and I’m going to turn the car around and drive home and go on Thursday for the beginner class and then connect with the beginner students and arrange to see them and fence with them and grow with them.

I love Charlie. He was crowned world champion yesterday.

Yesterday.

World.

Champion.

I fence with him often and have never gotten a win from him.

You know why?

He’s a f*cking world champion, that’s why, and I just now learned how to hold my weapon correctly.

It took one full year of practice to learn how to hold my weapon correctly.

I need to be more gentle with myself, and to focus on play. That’s the best way to learn anything anyway—in play.

It’s all me, all inside.

I’m heading home happily and excited about the Thursday class where I can fence with my peers.”

I wrote all that at Hines Drive and it was one of the most refreshing, encouraging pieces I have ever written. It was True.

Be gentle with yourself. You get to have fun. You get to be a beginner. You get to make a lot of mistakes and not know stuff and break equipment and on and on until you get it.

You get to be a beginner.