Confessions of An Overachiever

Sometime around noon today I had one of those significant personal realizations where you see yourself from someplace else in the room with absolute clarity.  On October 28th one more piece of my personal puzzle fell into place.  Right now I am in Iowa attending a conference to learn how to improve communication and cooperation between parents and their teenaged children.  Partly because the campus here is so large and the town so unfamiliar I got lost on my way to the training.  I drove 350 miles without incident, but managed to get lost between the hotel and the University extension building.  Being lost is an important detail and clue number one for this story because I was more concerned about being late than any other outcome.  Once I got there, I was concerned about not being in the right parking lot.  The number of the lot I parked in did not match the lot number on my parking pass; a problem I corrected at the first break.  I walked in at exactly 8:30 a.m. which is exactly when the training was scheduled to start. I had my blank check in my folder and was concerned about getting it to the facilitator so it didn't appear I was trying to shirk my obligation.  Right there, right then in Iowa it occurred to me:  I am an over-achieving, approval seeking, slightly neurotic woman with perfection as my personal standard!! Right then I should have gotten up, mussed up my neatly arranged materials, belched or something and released my need to color inside the lines.  No one cares that I am obsessively punctual or that I pay my bills on time or that I RSVP and send thank you notes.  What folks notice are the things I don't do well and those become the things for which I am known.  I've got to relax.  I don't get extra credit and noone cares.