It wasn't until my 39th year of life that someone else pointed out to me that I was a perfectionist. I had been sitting in my classroom, cutting and laminating. The assistant principal at my new school walked in my room and quietly watched me use a sharpie to touch up the black outline that I had cut off. She said, "I've never been a perfectionist" implying that I was a perfectionist.
As I looked at what I was doing, I had a devistating realization that I was, in fact, a perfectionist.
I had spent the last 18 years being driven utterly nuts by the other perfectionists in my life. Brooklynn, Olivia, Xander and even sweet baby Grant are perfectionists. All in different ways, but all equally annoying. And clearly they all got that trait from their father, the King of Perfection. This man has pushed my buttons with his need for E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G to be just right, for almost 20 years now. We even have a slogan for his future presidential campaign:
Ryan Berges, Done F****** Right.
This was developed from a fight we had while remodeling a kitchen. He had repaired some drywall that would be covered by new kitchen cabinets. Me being the "non-perfectionist," made the horrible assumption that we could go ahead and install the cabinets. Oh, ho, ho, not so fast. Ryan needed to texture and paint the wall that would be covered by cabinets, before he covered the wall with cabinets.
I am now painfully aware of my perfectionism. I have always known that I related to Monica in many ways but I believed I was more sane than her over-exaggerated character on Friends. However, I am not.
In Season 7 Episode 3 of Friends, Monica asks Pheobe for her grandmother's chocolate chip cookie recipe. She believed she was going to "be the mom with the world's best chocolate chip cookies." But she was wrong. And so are you if you are using the Nestle Tollhouse recipe.
Like Monica, I have always wanted to be the mom with the world's best chocolate chip cookies. And I have succeeded. And now I am sharing the recipe with the world. Enjoy this little piece of perfection.
If you would like to help support Ryan's presidential campaign, you can purchase one of our hats. They are blue, obvi.