Hey there, thank you for visiting my blog.

My name is Lya and I am a perfectionist.

Now, from the looks of this blog and this website in general, you might not be able to discern that about me. This is a mess. It's nowhere near perfect.

But that is the point of this blog and this website. In part anyway.

I've been a perfectionist for a while now and truth be told, it's a suffocating experience. When the bar is just so high, you get to the point where nothing you produce satisfies you. The standards aren't just high they're impossible. Eventually, the pressure you put on yourself becomes too much and you start running away. Because if you don't do anything at all, you won't disappoint yourself.

My perfectionism paralyzes me. I have so much I want to do, so much I want to say but I can't. I freeze instead. It's made me quite unhappy.

Even now as I'm writing this, part of me is panicking. I literally feel anxious because of how imperfect this entry is. I want to go back and edit the heck out of each sentence until it's perfect. I feel like I'm not explaining perfectly, it's not engaging enough, it doesn't flow well and that I could make it better. But I won't. For now, I just want to write.

I'm tired of constantly holding myself to ridiculous standards and holding myself back. I'm tired of working so hard at something and still putting myself down because I feel that it's not up to par. I'm tired of feeling like an imposter, telling myself that I don't deserve my accomplishments and that I just get lucky every single time.

My perfectionism affects a lot of my life but it's the most prominent with my writing. Writing used to be something I really enjoyed. Even typing that feels so bizarre to me because I haven't felt that way in forever. Ever since my perfectionistic tendencies kicked in, I not only grew to hate writing but it was anxiety inducing. Looking back, I don't know how I managed to write up my assignments for school.

I do write though - privately. I journal a lot and I have so much fun doing it. While I'm journalling sometimes I pretend that someone in the future will read it so in a way I'm writing for an audience. For me it makes it more fun. So naturally, somewhere along the line I thought, why not start a blog? I have a voice and I want it to be heard. I think it's especially important because my experience is pretty much never represented in mainstream media. I don't hear from people who look like me and I cannot put into words how much I craved that growing up and even now. For someone to look at me and say, hey I hear you. Maybe I could be that for someone.

I'm writing to get over my fear of writing and to rekindle my passion for it. This is a blog for me as much as it is for you.

Originally, I wanted to publish this website in the New Year. After I figured out exactly what this website is. After it was 'perfect'. But I'm publishing this incomplete website right now because I don't want to fear imperfection anymore. I'm done being stagnant. I want to create, and share. And if anyone is reading this at all, it could be fun for you to see this website slowly come alive.

If you've made it this far thank you. I'd love to hear from you. Drop a comment and tell me, what are you afraid of and how are you planning to overcome it?