Perfection

I sit down in my wooden chair in the living room, cup of coffee and piece of paper in tow. After carefully situating my coffee on the glass coaster that tops my abused coffee table, I stare down at the piece of paper. It is a cream colored sheet with artful black ink dying along the surface as it runs to map out calligraphic letters. The University seal is still in place, and so is the writing that pens my name: Alice Dupont. The deadly ink certifies me as a psychologist and made way for the opening of my practice which spanned forty years' time. It brings back memories, memories of predictions and miserable misfortunes.

Even before I was born, my parents knew I would achieve great things. They predicted their little girl would grow up to be a strong-willed, dedicated woman whose powering force in life would always be challenges. Once I grew up and entered the four-cornered confusion known as high school, I not only accepted the challenge of overcoming challenges, but my worldview changed to one that wanted--needed--to escape the boundaries of the mediocre and become absolutely perfect, especially academically. I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be a psychologist, the best psychologist, and my mind was set on either achieving that perfect goal or dying in the attempt.

I thought I was on a decent start. High school valedictorian, the top of every class I took--academically, I was doing almost okay. But it wasn't good enough. I felt I could have done better, so much better. Anyone could be valedictorian and at the top of every class. I was not perfect, not by a long shot, and I just couldn't stand it. I vowed to make it up in college. I didn't care what it took. I would be friendless if necessary, dateless as always, and I would be the perfect student. I would earn my degree and be the perfect psychologist. My patients would brag about me and how much I was able to help them, to empathize with them. I would be the most recommended psychologist in the history of recommended psychologists. I could taste perfection.

And college came. I shared a dorm room with a fellow female student who, to my surprise, was in college to become a psychologist as well. Her name was Maria Warner; she was an attractive brunette of eighteen years when we first met. I will never forget the first conversation I ever had with her simply because it made me realize how different we truly were, despite our share of a major.

"Wow! Valedictorian? That's amazing! I wish I could be just half as bright." Maria grinned, revealing her perfectly straight, illuminating smile that lit up the entire room. "I was a C student. I barely passed my classes; it's a wonder I even graduated!" She giggled to end her remark.

'A wonder I even graduated'? 'I barely passed my classes'? 'I was a C student'? I can remember thinking to myself while gritting my teeth. How did this girl sleep at night? A C is as good of a reason as any to be wiped off the face of the earth.

"Why were you a C student?" was all I could think of to ask. I was in absolute awe that she was grinning while talking about averaging a C. Had that been me, I would have been bawling my eyes out for days and forfeiting the privileges of eating and sleeping to make up for it.

"Probably because I never really placed an emphasis on academics. I focused more on my friends and family rather than studying constantly. I passed and graduated! I made really good friends in high school. That was good enough for me." She continued smiling, keeping on display her perfect teeth that were beginning to make me feel ill. "How did you get such good grades?"

"I studied constantly." Duh.

"Constantly?"

I nodded an affirmative.

"How did you make time for friends then?" She cocked her head to the side and watched me quizzically.

"I didn't. I had no friends. But I made it out as valedictorian, so it was definitely worth it. I can make friends later." I offered a tiny smile, sure not to grin so that my teeth would show.

Her regular expression quickly faded into a frown. "I'm sorry to hear that," she stated sincerely.

What? I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This girl, this C student who by the skin of her teeth graduated, was offering me her condolences? What was wrong with that picture? I didn't need friends; I needed perfect grades! She needed a collection of everyone in the world's deepest sympathies! My heart went out to her, but not for too long. I needed to study.

And from there, our lives parted their ways. While I was in our dorm room studying, she was out with her friends, partying--or whatever it was college kids did with their friends. But somehow, someway, we both ended up at the same graduation ceremony and both ended up with the same piece of paper that certified we were ready to go into the serious field of psychology. She was ecstatic with her boyfriend, her parents, and her best friends by her side. I was happy to an extent by myself. She gave the world the biggest grin of accomplishment she possibly could. I masked my horrible smile behind my sealed lips.

Things seemed to tumble downhill once I opened up my own practice. The first bad omen I stumbled upon was that I could never get the sign on the door to my office that held my name and job title--clinical psychologist--to be perfectly aligned and centered. But then, I actually started interviewing clients, trying to help them with their problems. I never could empathize with them, which was the very quality every professor stressed that a good psychologist needs. They complained of problems with their families and friends, problems I had never experienced before. Men would enter my office and tell me how their wives never appreciated them; women would wonder how to change their thought patterns so that they could worry less about their husbands and children. I felt like a failure, an even bigger failure. A month into the job, I firmly believed that instead of interviewing my patients, they should have been interviewing me.

But I remained with the job for many, many years. I strived to become a better psychologist, but I never reached the point I had envisioned for myself in my mind. Everyone has a breaking point, and mine with the field of perfection was met because of a newspaper article I recently read regarding Maria Warner Mayer who takes her last name after her husband of thirty years.

It was an article that praised who many believed was the "best psychologist in the state" because of her described "empathy" toward her clients and her "relatable" personality and background.

"She helped my husband and me reconcile before we made the horrible mistake of divorcing. Now we've been married for twenty years and are still going strong," one woman was quoted in the paper as saying.

"She has always been able to empathize with me. If I talk about a fault I've noticed within myself, she always knows what to say about her own imperfections to make me laugh, and make me feel better about myself," a man stated in the article. "She helps me realize imperfections can be good things because they make us human rather than robots. With that realization, I'm not depressed anymore."

This is the same girl who doesn't even try to be perfect. She has a husband, children, and a successful practice even after mine ended.

I have nothing to fall back on.

I let out a quiet, timid sigh while continuing to look down at the cream-colored paper in my hands. I make a few additional creases in the once perfectly straight page. The creases turn into crumples as I twist the imperfect page around with my fingers. Creases make up the page; it's barely recognizable. Finally, I straighten it out, take it between my thumbs and index fingers, and rip it in two, four, eight, sixteen...

I stare down at the shreds of paper on the scratched hardwood floor and grin widely at them.

"Now that's perfection."