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When I was a child I was a planner, or at least I sought to be, my thoughts were often dominated by preconceived notions of exactly how perfect I thought things should be. I would come up with the perfect itinerary for family trips (and then promptly become outraged at the fact that my parents would rather sleep in and relax than follow the down-to-the-second schedule crafted by their nine year old daughter.) Each year I would devise a plan as to exactly how and when the house should be decorated for Christmas, because for some reason in my mind the timely placement of wreaths and garlands was of such importance that world as I knew it would cease to exist unless my Christmas decorating was flawlessly executed. I always had ridiculously high expectations accompanied by mediocre organizational skills and very poor legitimate planning abilities.
This aspect of my personality extended well into my high school years. I would love to say that I grew into a free-spirited go with the flow kind of person much sooner than I actually did but in reality I was still obsessively planning. Be it a Friday night at the drive-in, a party, or even junior prom, I had the perfect plan for how it should happen. My ambition to perfect everything was a poor complement to my terrible lack of skill in actually carrying out plans. I was notorious for my inability to understand directions or come up with an ounce of common sense. Nevertheless, I sought perfection in everything I did.
After graduation, before we all went our separate ways, my friends and I got together for one last weekend at the lake. We started off by getting lost on a drive that we had been making almost every weekend for the past four years, turning an hour long car ride into a three hour trek. My best friend and I showed up late to a house full of our friends, who had already begun reminiscing about all of the situations we had somehow gotten ourselves into through the years. Someone brought up the time we spent camping in front of target on black Friday not knowing that they actually had already had their sales on Thanksgiving. We realized that we never would have discovered our favorite restaurant if I hadn’t forgotten to make dinner reservations for our junior prom. We talked about all the time we spent driving around after the places we intended to go were closed or booked, and laughed about how much of a problem things that actually never even mattered seemed to be. It wasn’t until that night that I realized the perfection I thought was so important actually didn’t matter at all. My favorite moments were the product absolute chaos. At this point, any plans I make are irrelevant, because the best experiences in my life so far have been far from perfect.
Abigail Cheek is a McConnell Scholar in the Class of 2023. She is studying psychology, history, and political science at the University of Louisville.
Abigail Cheek is a McConnell Scholar in the Class of 2023. She is studying psychology, history, and political science at the University of Louisville.