Achieving Perfection

The first day of school I skipped in wearing shiny brand new shoes, a simple pony tail, and an eager grin. Learning was a drug and I was a junkie being shoved into a world of opportunity. There were books on every wall and the alphabet was plastered above my head. Every surface was bright and colorful and I could feel my eyes widen as they tried to take everything in. This, I was sure, would be the beginning of something great.

The teacher began immediately with instructions: “Please sit down,” she had said. “Everyone will take a seat where they see their name printed on a desk.” And with that there was a frantic scrambling to find our spots. I got to mine and promptly sat down, waiting impatiently for the next instructions.

As the year went on though, my classmates began to trickle away from their assigned seats and towards the friends they had made. Cliques had been formed and those boundaries were much more important than the ones set so long ago by some distant woman. But I stayed glued in place to the desk my nametag was taped to. I didn’t want to get into trouble of course, and rule breaking could end up in consequences I did not want to face. Besides, why would I want to dilute the eye-opening educational process with talking and distractions?

School was consistently an excitement. When I was in class, there were assignments to complete and projects to get excited over. After the bell released us back home, there was homework and more lessons to devour. In my first years, homework was a privilege that I got to enjoy, not a chore. I remember looking on with shock as students confessed to the teacher that they had forgotten to complete the assignment, all the while whispering to their friends about how they were lucky to have gotten out of it.

Such avoidance wasn’t a technique that worked well for me and I quickly became aware that preparation was my greatest asset. One of my most traumatic memories is receiving a math test back only to find a big, fat D scrawled across the middle of the page. It was just a grade I had told myself, but no matter how many times I chanted it, it never became true. A single letter had somehow carved failure into my being, branded me with a symbol of shame and inadequacy. I remember casting furtive glances around the class to make sure no one else had noticed as I stuffed the paper into my bag. That D, signifying all that is dumb, despicable, dirty, or disgraceful, is what students like myself constantly run from. With each perfect paper that is turned in and every project that gets finished on time we lay another step down on the pavement, always hoping we are faster than the beast chasing us.

High school came with the added stress of advanced classes. But as the coursework got harder, maintaining the perfect grades I could be satisfied with became more challenging. I had to make a choice that, ultimately, wasn’t a choice at all. Friends drifted to more interesting company, and I studied; I was always studying.

I’d begin the day by turning on my computer and checking the grade reports. A+ for math, A+ for English, A+ for history… It was like completing inspection to make sure that each grade was exactly as it should be. But daily checkups were also like feeling your stomach plummet to the ground on the days when the letter A stood alone. A cancer survivor with no hair is still technically winning the game, but does it feel that way when they are missing such a vital part of themselves?

On those days I would increase my constant stressing over the smallest details. The nights were filled with me checking and rechecking my work to make sure that there was nothing one could find fault with. And the next day, just like every day, I would wake up with slightly bigger bags underneath my eyes and turn in my homework to be graded consistently with a 100% plastered across the top.

These perfect grades are the perfect bodies that anorexics dream about. Constant effort is exerted but your mind is always working to distort the image reflected by the mirror. Your butt could always be smaller, your collar bones could always stick out more. If only you hadn’t eaten that piece of chocolate, broken away momentarily from the sickness that coats your mind. If you weren’t so weak you could achieve that perfection you strive for. Listen for the voice of authority that dictates your actions. She is always there, breathing over your shoulder, telling you what must be done to succeed. All that is required is for you to push all your friends away (after all, they are only distractions), check your progress every morning, and pay attention to every minute detail. It’s not so much to ask really. You must play the game to win after all, and it just so happens that this game has higher stakes.