The Perfect Messy Truth About Me.

My biggest fear in life isn’t heights, spiders, or even open water (though it only takes 18 seconds to drown). It’s not even dying. My biggest fear in life is not being perfect. That’s what scares me the most. I realized this in therapy earlier this week. Ugh. Breakthroughs in therapy are the worst—like, cool, thanks for cracking me open, now see you in two weeks while I spiral.

This realization came to me because I’ve been grieving. My dog, Snowfie, passed away a few weeks ago. She was my everything, my little pink ray of hope. We were only a few months away from celebrating 12 years together. I’ll save the story of how we found each other for another day, but I swear the universe or God, or cosmic forces, whatever you want to call it, sent her to me when I needed her most.

Because before Snowfie, I was terrible. Like, a walking ball of anger and sadness. Call it intergenerational trauma from a line of fierce first-born daughters, or call it teenage angst, but either way, I had it bad.

Middle school me was a bit of a menace. I remember volleyball season in 8th grade. I was small, scrawny, and desperate to fit in. I tried out and made the team (probably out of pity), but one day during practice, while were were working on our serves a classmate behind me whispered, “at least I can hit the ball.” For some reason, I turned around and served that ball square into her nose. She left walking out with a bloody face, while I walked into in-school suspension, and a two-week bench.

My mom, bless her, realized team sports probably weren’t for me. So she dragged me into a smelly boxing gym about a mile from our house, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “you want to hit someone, learn to hit them right and for the right reasons.” And by accident, I fell in love with fighting. Boxing became my outlet, and lowkey, I was pretty good at it.

But even with boxing and this new found community, going into high school was rough. I was excited for my freshman year. New school, new me—or so I thought. It was a Catholic school, where class sizes were small but the egos were big. I tried out and made the cheer team as a freshman, and I was ready to live my Bring It On dream. Instead, I was pushed off the team and bullied for who I was.

I didn’t tell anyone. I just bottled it up and pretended everything was fine, perfect even. At home, I continued to keep up the “perfect daughter” act, but the weight of it all made me snap.

I remember, one day in history class, I walked in late with my gross-looking Vitamin C infused water bottle. A jock, who sat to the right of me, tapped me on the shoulder and said loud enough for everyone to hear, “Hey, are you late because you had to cross the river to fill that up?” Giggles all around. My face turned red from embarrasment and anger. My only reaction was to shove my desk into his and storm out. That was just one of many moments I had to endure. I continued to keep everything bottled up, my grades started slipping, and my only relief—boxing—was taken away when I acted out.

Home became another battleground. I was fighting with my parents, acting a fool and I didn’t know how to deal with my emotions, so I ran away. Literally. Twice. Spoiler alert: it didn’t help.

And then came Snowfie. Middle of my junior year, she entered my life. She wasn’t just a pet—she was a safe space. She got me out of my head, out of the house, and into the world. She stayed by my side through everything: graduating high school, my autoimmune flare-ups, the depression after being violently assaulted, moving out of my parents’ house, my first apartment, meeting my perfect match, our first home together, adding more furry family members, graduating college, campaign trails, and my first “big girl job.” She was there through every version of me. She was steady.

She had spunk, too. My family called her la chola because she picked fights with my mom’s dogs y porque se faltaba buena manera. I just called her perfect. Even when she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure 18 months ago, I know she fought to stay with me. But a few weeks ago, she had an episode she couldn’t come back from.

And suddenly, I’m left with this hole in my chest, grief pouring out where she used to live.

Here’s the thing—I feel silly connecting my perfectionism to my dog dying and my high school trauma, but it’s my truth. Before Snowfie, my emotions were too big and too scary for me to handle. So much so, I would physically run away and shut down. With her, I had peace. She gave me the courage to feel without being consumed.

Her little head nestled in my neck and her cotton fur catching my tears if needed. Now that she’s gone, I feel like I’m back to that 15-year-old version of me—overwhelmed, terrified of my own feelings, desperate to look like I have it all together. Perfect.

My therapist asked me, “If this was your sister, or your friends, or Pat, what would you tell them?” I said I’d tell them it’s okay, that they’re human and their emotions are valid. She added, “You’d also give them grace. So why aren’t you giving yourself any?” And I just sat there and said, “Because I need to be perfect.”

I’ve built myself out of my hardships to be the best, most polished version of me. Perfectly dressed, perfectly poised, perfectly organized. And when I’m less than perfect, I spiral. I turn into a perfectly organized procrastinator. Writing endless to-do lists, color-coded plans, fonts and tabs and goals all lined up neatly.

And then I do… nothing.

Because the fear of not being perfect paralyzes me. And the cycle repeats. Updating lists, and plans and changing colors until its perfect again.

So here I am—grieving, spiraling, learning. I struggle so hard with perfectionism and OCD. But maybe the real work isn’t building myself to be perfect—it’s giving myself the grace I’d so easily give to anyone else.

I've realized that perfection isn't keeping me safe. It's keeping me trapped. I can look back at my life and see that the best things - the dog that healed me, the love I found, the career I built, the true friendships I've made - all of this came when I was far from perfect. Life has never rewarded me for flawless preformance, only for showing up.

I know I struggle with dismantling these narratives in my head, and it's going to take a lot of inner work, and grace. But I am enough. Perfectionism is a liar and a thief. She's a big ole' liar liar pants on fire with some sticky fingers. She's a thief of joy and living. Perfectionsim has convinced me that love and belonging are on the other side of impossible stantards. Standards that I made up myself. I know I get grace from the people that love me. I just need to learn to give it to myself.

So my call to you, and to myself, is this: give yourself grace. Write the messy list, cry when you need to, don't runaway from your feelings. Learn to sit with emotional discomfort, and let it be. Life is messy, life is unorganized but it's also beautiful. Let's remind ourselves that being human is the most perfect thing we will ever be.

For her, always,

Karinna