An IE Girl in an OC World

An IE Girl in an OC World

There it is. The OC stereotype does exist. I've lived in the IE for 95% of my life and it has been awesome. Really when you don't know of anything different, you don't have anything to complain about. I had heard of the stereotypes but didn't really care. Then I move to Anaheim Hills....

I started noticing the differences right away. Saturday morning we stroll out lazily with our grubbies on, our hair unkempt and just barely brushed teeth....this was our tradition afterall. We loved not caring as we spent a Saturday morning together As we walk into Target, I'm suddenly finding myself feeling self conscience. Beautifully put together people walk around the aisles and shop. I start thinking about what I should have worn and, "gosh I could have at least put some eye liner on.". The differences in where we live start revealing itself...I start noticing that where we live can start making us who we are.

I also realize that my current location is not supporting my efforts in living an authentic life....I can't imagine that lady in her super cute workout clothes with pristine make-up and hair-sprayed ponytail wants to get up early to go through all that effort on her "day off." Perhaps more importantly, I wonder, does she ever have a "day off" from perfection? She wakes up day after day to look perfect. Work-out attire was no exception. Naturally, this pisses me off when I realize, "great, no day off for me....".

You see, perfectionism is what I want you to think I have. It is a source of shame for me. Yes shame. Shame is a word that is uncomfortable because by nature it makes us squirm. Shame is something we ALL feel, but we ALL find ways to hide it. Mine shame is channeled through perfectionism.

Then, there was this OC police officer who ruined my life one morning and caught me not being a perfect driver. It was my first ticket ever because I had a "perfect" record. The reality is, I was never a perfect driver, I just knew when to hide it at the sight of a cop. I speed, don't make complete stops, but when you look at my record it was spotless, just how I like it. Being pulled over to someone else may be second nature but it hit the core of my shame. So what did I do? I did what I do best, hide my shame by telling people my sad story and having them make me feel better. Once I compared myself to them, it was all good. After all, it was my very first ticket, that was pretty darn good......but ultimately for me, it wasn't good enough.

You see someone explained shame to me this way.....our life is a perfectly manicured lawn. Beautiful to the eye, it gleams with green tailored perfection. And then a weed appears. The weed (being shame) is unwelcome. So, we go a pluck it. But plucking it is a short fix because the root still exists, and where there is a root....there is still a weed.

My weed was the cop, the ticket of shame that labeled me a "failure" at driving. I plucked the weed by comparing my imperfection with others, it made me feel better for awhile. But the core of the problem still lie under the perfectly manicured lawn waiting for another episode to grow again.

How do we get rid of the root? Well the cerebral obvious reason being "give it to God.". You know, "nail it to the cross", "let go and let God," blah blah blah. I've heard it my whole life but my roots are still there. I'm not blah-ing it because it's wrong, I'm blah-ing it because I don't know how to authentically let God dig out the root. I have all the garden tools, I've read the gardening instructions......oh and I tell others how to get rid of the weeds too. But living root free myself is something I'm still working on.

Practice makes perfect. Look at your lawn, what weeds are growing? Where is your pile of plucked weeds, can you identify them? Do you know the source of what makes your weeds grow? What things do you do to pluck away your weeds? Most importantly, are you able to hand over the shovel and give up your root of shame? I'm still a lawn in progress. However, I've decided that I'm not going to "feed" my weeds anymore which may affect the look of my front yard. Although the thought of a weed-filled disheveled lawn petrifies me, I'm looking forward to my "days off" of plucking.