The Perfectionist

I do best when my life is perfectly ordered. The phrase a place for everything, everything in it's place, when carried out in my house, makes me blissfully happy. My drive for perfection is an inherited trait, one I get from my Dad.

And when I married Carl, that perfectionist streak collided with "The Speech". Some well-meaning, but misguided soul, told me that what I did and did not, said and did not say, everything I was and was not, would be weighed, measured, and judged. Should I be less-than, should I do something wrong, should I be that wife, Carl would be found at fault, and he would have to deal with it.

I had no concept of what this fully meant until I met that wife, the one I so detest, the one that gives us all a bad name. I have met her, over and over again, in many different forms, and I have not liked her in any of them.

After meeting her, my perfectionist streak kicked in, and I decided that I would not be that wife. I would be the perfect wife. "Everything in its place" collided with "I don't want to be that wife", and the end result was me, jumping into the deep end of the pool known as Army life, without knowing how to swim.

I went to meetings, volunteered with the FRG, helped out in any way shape or form I could. Not for the recognition I would get, but for the recognition it would bring Carl. He had not married a dependopotamus, and I was going to prove it. I refused to ask for help, unless my world was upended, I struggled and survived, and thrived, and lived, on my own, as much as I could. By the end of deployment, I was exhausted, worn out from New Mommyhood, worn out from being the perfect wife, with no idea when the last time I took care of just myself, when I did something for just myself, had been.

While I am comfortable with myself, as I am, crow's feet, weird personality quirks and all, that self-confidence falters in the light of being the Good Army Wife. I am still struggling to define myself with as Army Wife, in addition to all the other definitions I have. Someday I will be able to be just who I am, all the time, and not flinch about the impact it might have on Carl, I won't worry about being the perfect wife and will just worry about being his wife.

Until then… invitations for a birthday party will reduce me to hives.

~Jennifer