What a Waste

I read an article on MSN.com today about a girl who has, for the last 13 years, had perfect attendance at school. Not by accident, by design. She wanted this. She refused to attend baseball tournaments or take a senior skip day all in the name of maintaining her perfect attendance record. She is a self-described "perfectionist."

What a fucking waste. 

I don't think there is anything gained by encouraging perfectionism in those who feel compelled to seek it. We all fail eventually. It's inevitable. You're better off learning to accept yourself and cope with the imperfections and failures than to indulge in a perfectionism that can only be achieved on a very small, insignificant scale. 

I'm not judging. I'm a reformed perfectionist. 

But, never about my attendance.

I'm not going to lie to you, I skipped school in high school. A lot. Especially in my senior year. I particularly hated my pre-Calculus class and skipped it at least a couple of times a week. 

The whole affair makes me laugh in retrospect because I wasn't particularly clever in getting excused from class. I am a decent forger and our attendance office was insanely stupid.  Every. Single. Time. I went to the "seniors" window with an excuse note she would point to the next window and tell me freshman/sophomores get excused at a different window. And honestly, who goes to the dentist that often?

There are things I regret about the choices I have made. Things that I would do differently if I had them to do over. Skipping school is not one of them. It was fun. I don't regret it at all.

I would love to say that I learned some big life lesson by breaking the rules. But, mostly, I learned that sometimes you can get away with stuff you're not supposed to and sometimes it's fun to break the fucking rules. 

This poor girl gets a lousy 15 minutes of fame for a record I wouldn't take if you offered it to me gold-plated. I hope, in the end, that's worth it to her.