trying to be perfect

Golden hair, blue eyes, gap-toothed smile
Big sister, fair-haired girl, model student
Cries inside and sometimes out
Trying to be perfect, worrying she'd fail.

"You cry too much"
"Grow up, it's just a grade"
"What a loser - look at her sob"
Why's she crying?
Why's she scared and worried?
Trying to be perfect, she knows she's failing.

Gangly, awkward, uncomfortable
Braces, funny hair, too tall, too skinny
"You're the good example
Show them how to do this"
But inside still wondering
How to be perfect as her imperfect world
Crumbles down around her.

The path laid out for her
The order of things is just right
No broken curfews, no bad-boy boyfriends,
The leader of the team
The one left in charge
The good big sister
Is there actually another option?
No
Not when you're trying to be perfect.

A push here, a purposeful trip-up there
"I'm not always your good little girl"
See me for who I am
Not that expectation of the one
Who always makes the right choices
So I don't have to spend my life
Trying to be perfect, trying not to fail.

Off she goes, into her adult life
College first, get a job, meet a good boy
Get married, have a family, toe the line
Do the right thing.
Just enough rebellion in there
To satisfy that little streak
We all have in us, waiting to break free.
But just enough so that
Her goal for perfection is still attainable
So no one is disappointed
So she doesn't fail.

Life presents you with options
Choices, complications, messes
It is nearly impossible to keep that goal
Of being perfect every day
The guidebook doesn't map out
What to do in circumstances
That sit in front of you when you least expect
That tug at your heartstrings, your morals, your goals
That make you see your life
In an entirely different light
When you're just trying to be perfect.

There is that one moment, that one choice
That one pivotal event
It might be small in the broad scheme of life
But what it represents is so signficant
It catches your breath
And makes you realize once and for all
You will never be perfect.

So then what?
Do you change your life all over again?
Years and years of living for everyone else's
Undue expectations
And now your life is formed and shaped
In a way where you don't fit
You aren't perfect
You aren't even really happy
With that life.
Oh it isn't bad
It just isn't yours,
But instead formed out of a series
Of choices made for everyone else
But you
When you were trying to be perfect.