UNBECOMING PERFECT. My Story.

Jan 2, 2023

6 min read

Not just a website rebrand but a whole movement, and indicative of everything I am going after in 2023.

In 2019 I read Michelle Obama's autobiography Becoming and loved everything about her story and the idea that we all become who we are as the sum of our life's experiences. I believe that everyone's becoming story has different twists and turns that God has ordained since the beginning of time. My life is no different, I have spent years being shaped into the person that I am today - becoming an educator, becoming a mom, becoming a leader, becoming successful, becoming anxious, becoming wounded, becoming a divorcee (that one was a tough one... ) I digress, back to the origin story.

Not long after reading Becoming I started seeing different quotes and images associated with the idea of "un-becoming". I remember thinking, "what an interesting thought, the idea that we can un-become something". During that year I began the work of what I now know to be my unbecoming journey. I decided to go natural, I chopped off all of my hair, and I started being more intentional about my walk with God.

At the end of that year I had a miscarriage. There was something about that miscarriage that felt like the first big crack in my life's foundation. You see up into that point my life had been perfectly planned out and executed and I thought that I had everything in my control. I went to college, started a career, got married, bought a house, had babies when I wanted to, got promoted, took fun family vacations, I was living the full "American Dream". In my mind as long as I worked hard, tried my best, and prayed about it all would be fine. But as I miscarried on Christmas Eve of 2019, still bleeding as I wrapped Christmas presents for the boys, I sat with a new thought, "God why did you let this happen to me?".

Even in my questioning then I considered the fact that some women never got to have children at all, and I felt that I didn't have the right to be sad. That I should just be grateful that I have children and instead pray for healing and a new baby. I did exactly that, I prayed and read Job a lot during this time, and the sadness of that season was replaced with the joy of having my sweet baby girl. I had been "restored", yet as I write this from my current place of healing and restoration I see so many moments in my life where I made the decision that I didn't "get to" feel one thing or another. That if I was a good Christian, a good mom, a good wife that I didn't have the right to feel sad about anything, ever. What a complete sack of crap... I digress again, back to the origin story!

After the birth of my daughter in 2020 I started an IG page with the handle @unbecomingperfect. There was something about holding a little baby girl in my arms that really forced me to sit with questions about how I wanted to raise her and what I wanted her to believe about herself. This caused me to look within to ask myself a similar question: What did I believe about me?

Over the next year I embarked on a postpartum fitness journey that was about so much more than weight loss. I worked out 4-5 times a week, I ate balanced, I read my bible, I found my groove.Through consistency and discipline I lost 50 pounds in 9 months, I thought that I had conquered the highest mountain:

And then in 2021 the bottom fell out.

I started counseling in early 2021, just a few weeks before life as I knew it would change forever. When I started counseling I named the goal of becoming less stressed and less perfectionistic, in my intake I didn't even mention the miscarriage but instead focused on the stress that I felt in my job and the internal feelings I was wrestling with of never doing enough. God I was so out of touch with my self, I had gotten so good at swallowing my own thoughts that I often struggled during sessions to even name what I was feeling. But just a few weeks after starting counseling I sat in a session with my counselor telling her about what had happened and I cried so mightily my head hurt for days. I was a ghost in a mask for weeks at work, very few people knew what I was going through. Like I had done so much during my life I knew how to "pull it together" and take care of business. This time it was different, this time I just didn't have the strength. I was the principal of a school, and my close knit leadership team knew something was off. I was a mess. I would put on a brave face with my staff in the morning and in the car rider line waving and smiling to families, but every time I got a moment alone I felt like I couldn't catch my breath.

I never realized how much I cared about what others thought until I was faced with the disintegration of my marriage. So much of who I believed I was had been wrapped in my identity as a wife, and if I wasn’t a wife anymore, “Who was I ?”. I sat with the thoughts and I tried to define who I was, I was still a mom, but now a single mom? But that didn't feel quite right as I still had support from my children's dad. But the 2 parent household that I grew up in and was used to and that my children grew up in and were used to was gone. Now there was a brand new reality forming of what our day to day lives would be like. I realized during that time just how many women were on similar journeys of unraveling, unbecoming, trying to figure out how to put it all back together. Trying to take all of the broken pieces of the life they once knew to form a new picture.

I knew I needed to write about it but I didn't know where to start. I had so many thoughts but I felt that I didn't trust my voice. I didn't know what to say in a blog to inspire other people, it was taking everything I had just to encourage myself to go on and face each day. I didn't post on social media for months because I just didn't know what to say. All of my FB friends only knew Tiffany the wife, mom, leader, jokester, encourager - how would I explain everything? How would I be able to walk the line of being true to my current life and what had happened without sounding bitter? How would I tell my story in a way that honors my experiences without my business becoming everybody's business?

I eventually realized that it wasn't other people's thoughts I was hiding from, it was my own. Whether people say it or not, there is a sense of pride that comes from "doing it right" and having the Christmas Card ready family. I came to a point where I realized that telling my story and helping others meant dealing with pride, ego, and judgment in a way I never have before. Would there be messy folks along the way? Of course. But I also knew that messy folks like screenshottable FB posts, photos, and 15-second video clips so I doubted they would read my full articles, and instead focused on writing for those who were looking for encouragement in the trials they were facing. But in the rare event one of you Messy Bessies have made it this far I have some advice for you, seek healing from gossip and envy and your life will change. I digress... back to the origin story.

In counseling I've gone through deep hard work to find that voice again. Through fits of anger and rage, joy and happiness, I find myself here on the other side. My life is not perfect, it never has been. I don't have control of my life, I never did, all I had was the anxiety of trying to hold all the pieces together like a Jenga tower on a wobbly table. I dipped my toes back in the writing waters last October finally letting everyone in on the divorce. It honestly felt like the biggest weight off of my shoulders, but I knew that was just the tip of the iceberg. I knew there was a survivor's praise inside of me that would not go away until it was out there. I got this e-mail from my counselor on the last week of 2022 and I just read it and cried:

Consider this the first installment of so much to come on the subject of releasing perfection. This year and for the rest of my life I am doing the work of unbecoming perfect, I only have one question for all of my readers: