For a really long time I’ve tried to fit everything into nice, neat little boxes. Everything has been either black or white. Good or bad. But recently I got a stupid long text from my ex-best friend essentially telling me that I sucked as a person, because I was so wrapped up in my own mess of a life that didn’t check in on her on one critical night in hers. My gut reaction was that I was a terrible, awful person who didn’t deserve to exist.

And then I realized that I needed to reevaluate.

Not everything will fit into the perfect little boxes that my anxiety would like it to. Not everything is black and white. There are areas of grey. And different shades of grey within those grey areas. Not everyone is going to be a good person all of the time, but they still are ultimately considered a good person. Even though they sometimes make decisions that hurt people. Being a good person doesn’t automatically equate to perfection.

Just because I wasn’t able to be there for one critical night, doesn’t mean that I am an awful person. While I truly feel so deeply sorry that I made things worse, I had no way of knowing, at the time, that I was making things worse. And, furthermore, this one night does not define me as a person. I’m a good person who isn’t perfect. Who sometimes unintentionally hurts people, and whose decisions sometimes fall into the areas which are shades of grey.

Even though my anxiety wants everything to fit into nice, neat little boxes, I’ve realized that the real world doesn’t actually work like this. Most things actually fall into the middle area- the shades of grey. And I’m working on becoming more comfortable with the idea of this. And hopefully, one day, I won’t feel the need for my boxes at all anymore.

-X