Overthinking is dish served cold

on reclaiming simplicity

It’s my fiancés birthday coming up, and I’ve been too busy overthinking to think about it. For days now, weeks, I’ve been spiralling out of control (such a loaded word but true nonetheless). It’s like I’ve been concerned about everything other than what actually matters. Unable to focus on anything other than…myself.

When I get like this, I’m a hard person to talk to. Most of the time, I’m utterly consumed -not actually there- wondering who I am, who I want to be. How I come across. Whether I’m a good enough friend. Whether I’ve said the wrong thing. Whether so and so likes me. What my future plans are. Whether those plans will work out. If I’m making the right decisions. If my life is heading in the right direction. How the people around me see me. Whether I’m too much. Whether I’m not enough. Whether I’m too awkward. Whether my personality is off-putting. Whether my face is too bitchy. Why my words never come out right.

Why I find it so hard to feel normal.

It gets to a point that I become so self absorbed, so burnt out, that my priorities become a checklist. Fun things and future events become chores that I’m unable to enjoy because I’m so stressed about doing the right thing, being the right person. And nothing feels rewarding at that point because I know that I can never get it right. And in that case, I ought to just do nothing because it’s better for the people I love, than probably letting them down. And so I might as well just curl into a ball and sink into the absurd…

It’s a paradoxical, self sabotaging loop. One that I’m determined to fix.

I recently read a substack post which said, “you can’t say the wrong thing to the right person.” A simple mantra that set my world alight. It’s like my pulse slowed down in that moment, because isn’t that the core of all my concerns? Making sure that I’m saying the right things, doing the right things, being the right person? Isn’t that why I feel so disconnected? Because life has become a performance. One where my self worth is based on reactions - based on tiny glimpses of successful ‘rightness’.

And is that why I feel so unfulfilled? Because I haven’t allowed myself the freedom to just be. Space to think about what really matters, and feeling like total dog shite every time an important event comes around, and I’m too much of a mess to have prepared in the most perfect way. Because that’s what matters, right? Being prepared? Being on top of things, being organized, being the best.

Being.

Being.

Being.

But when did my self worth become how I am, rather than who I am?

And is there something there? Can this mantra apply to the rest of life?

Perhaps, you can’t do the wrong thing with the right intentions?

Perhaps you can’t be wrong for the right person?

And doesn’t that solve everything?

And don’t I have space to think now!

So what actually matters? Being someone who loves authentically sounds a fair place to start. And there’s no place for overthinking there, because if you offer love to the right person, then they will accept it with open arms.

So, let’s apply this to my fiancés birthday…in a blurry haze, the idea of it became too overwhelming to consider. I didn’t know how to make it perfect, so I didn’t think about it at all. Deep down, I forgot what mattered. Simply making sure that he feels celebrated and loved. Simply thinking about him rather than myself. Simply allowing my love to be enough, no grandiose gestures required.

And once the tirade of perfectionist thoughts ceased, I became creative. Yes, I may not have enough money, but I can lay the table with homemade confetti. I can DIY brown wrapping paper with sequins like someone had on Pinterest. I can bake his favourite cookies and cut them into the shape of maple leaves. I can peacefully craft a day that makes him shine from the rooftops, one that doesn’t have to be stressful. Doesn’t have to be loaded with guilt that I haven’t done enough. Haven’t spent enough. Because I can’t do the wrong thing, for the right person.

And I’m afraid it’s as simple as that.

I’m afraid I am enough without the glitz and glamor. I can give enough if it comes from the heart.

And I’m at peace now. At peace with the knowledge that rightness is a facade, and me-ness isn’t.