Perfection…screw it.

Last night was the Advent performance!

It went okay. I messed up one line and it was a good lesson for me.  I practiced really hard this week and didn't receive a lot of notes in rehearsal. I think I was carrying some ego into the performance in that regard.  I think I felt like I was the best performer because I wasn't getting a lot of adjustments.  Sooooo, when I messed up one of my lines -- and it was a line of rhyming poetry (duh, there's no covering that…when something is supposed to rhyme and it doesn't!) -- I started beating myself up and feeling shame. It was only the second scene -- I messed up already? I still had most of the show to get through!

When I left the stage I felt deflated and thought, "Well, it's all downhill from here. I was the first to mess up. Maybe the only mess up -- me, the golden child who didn't get a bunch of notes yesterday. I'm really disappointed in myself." 

Yet, I knew in my heart that I didn't want to have that experience and that I could choose differently. I knew I needed to choose differently. I let myself find a quiet place inside my heart and I simply spoke out a little prayer, "Please forgive my ego and allow me to release myself from my perfectionism."  I shed a few cleansing tears and after a few minutes, I felt ready to move on. The rest of the show went well - I was able to be present, which is very important to me. When people congratulated me after the show, I was able to say, "Thank you" without any extra chatter about my mistake (something I've repeatedly done in the past and have been called out on by a favorite teacher. I haven't liked that about my post-performance behavior, but I also haven't been able to switch it off in the past -- it's been a source of frustration for me over the past couple of years.)

This time, I felt…clean. I felt like I could accept the compliments even though I had carried ego into the show and had messed up a poignant moment in the poetry. You know, it's true that it sucked for me that I didn't give a perfect show…but you know what? I gave a totally present show. I was able to deal with my internal issues after my disappointment and move on so that it didn't affect the rest of my experience. That was really, really valuable for me.

We got home pretty late. I thought about writing a Holidailies entry right away (I have discovered that I really like writing late at night before I go to bed because I have less energy with which to censor myself), BUT -- my husband grabbed my computer and started playing on it. He has his own computer, but he likes mine better.  Suddenly, I realized that I didn't want to write for the sake of writing last night when I came home from the concert. I wanted to write only to keep up with the Holidailies entries.  That seemed like an echo of what had just happened on stage a few hours earlier -- my ego getting in my way, big time. Is it more important to me to be perfect, to be able to say that I wrote every single day? Or is it more important for me to be honest? 

I'm not a perfect person. It's exhausting to try to "keep up appearances" anyway. So, here's the Holidailies for December 8, the day after the concert. There is no entry for December 7.  :o)