Abusing E

 

Sometimes it’s best to start a story at the end. The good news is that I’m mostly off of E now- almost fully recovered. I don’t think there’s any bad news.

The Highs

“Excellence, then,” Daddy preached, “is not an act, but a habit.”

He would line us up in the living room, dangling revolutionary ideas over our heads, while we three fledglings strained to open our minds wide enough to catch them. He assigned us famous poems and speeches and sections from books like Think and Grow Rich and Mind Power Into the 21st Century. We shocked our teachers with our impeccable regurgitation of bits from the Gettysburg Address and Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream.” It was there, nestled on the couch between my siblings, that I met the likes of Malcolm X, Robert Kiyosaki, Plato, and Confucius. It was there that I learned every word to Lift Every Voice and Sing. It was there that I garnered the tools I would need to yawn my way through my first few years in public school. And it was there that I took my first hit of E.

Excellence.

My best and worst habit. I took it like smack, injected it into my veins, and got lifted off of supremacy. I lived for the the exceptional, the superb. I felt my first high in kindergarten. This was the big leagues. No more pass/ fail grades of K-3 and K-4. Woodbridge Christian School (later Cary Christian Academy) kindergartners were assessed on a scale of U (unsatisfactory) to E (excellent) and I had to have my E by the pack.

“Outstanding!” my father would proclaim when I brought home a report card smeared with exceptional marks. Gram would clap her feeble hands and save every worksheet and coloring page I presented her. Mommy would click her tongue and pinch my cheek. “Smart girl,” she would say and allow me a roll of her favorite candy, Smarties. “Big head,” she would occasionally mutter, “Big head full of smarts.”

Recognition didn’t matter. As long as I knew I was the best of the best of the best, my spirit would soar.

 

The Lows

I wanted to yank her s-t-u-p-i-d, t-h-i-c-k, ponytail. I’d only gotten a glimpse of Ashley Gravel’s head as Mrs. McCowen spun me around to award me with the second place medal, but it felt like I’d stared for an eternity, and the image of her bobbing brown head as she correctly spelled out my word is forever burned in my memory. I had lost the second grade spelling bee. I returned to my desk to a chorus of applause. Jasmine Lawry hugged my neck, congratulated me in her typical, over-the-top manner, and called me a smart cookie. I placed my fists on my thighs to stop the shaking and vowed never to misspell bicycle again.

Eight years later, I took a deep breath and sobbed a sloppy “You don’t understand!” into the wet pages of my 10th grade biology book.

Angie took my report card. “Are you really crying, Ro? It’s a C.”

I took the liberty of letting Ms. Angie know that Roco, student extraordinaire, fretted over B+’s and literally set fire to B’s. C’s would ruin me. C’s would render me and my GPA trash. C’s would thwart my college plans. C’s would destine me for a fate worse than failure. C’s would destine me for average. And average people were invisible.

Such was the pattern throughout my life. If I didn’t achieve, I would fall into a fit of fury and punishment. Anything less than excellent would unleash a torrential cycle of hurt and hatred upon myself. If I didn’t have my E, I had– and was– nothing.

The Overdose

During coaching moments I always call myself by my last name.

Get it together, Price. 

You can do this, Price.

Let’s go Price!

In this instance it was: You’re killing yourself, Price. Killing yourself.

I’d stomped every on every leaf on my way across campus. I sat in my car clutching a flyer that promised to educate the event attendees on “ALL THINGS LAW SCHOOL!” You don’t even want to go to law school anymore. WHY are you doing this? Why are you applying? Why are you pretending?

For that E.

Because excellent people go to law school, right? My heart’s desires became a chaser.  I had stuffed them so far down my throat after that E pill that I had no idea, no earthly inkling, what I truly wanted. It would take two years to dig through what others wanted for me, what others expected from people like me, what I thought would be excellent, and what I thought I wanted for myself, to find what I truly wanted.

Rehab

It took four breakdowns. Four times for my structure to be shaken in such a way that I had no choice but to shift my thinking. 2009. 2011. 2013. 2014. Break. Rebuild. Break. Rebuild. Break. Rebuild. Break. Rebuild. With each rebuild and redefinition of me came a redefinition of excellence.

Today I like my E cut raw: Grade A, authentic, vulnerable, and real. My personal best is excellent.  I assess myself on a heart scale: how much heart did I put into this? Did I do my absolute best? Excellent. Did I sincerely apologize after that screw-up? Excellent. Did I learn a new set of skills by making a million and one mistakes? Excellent. The comfort and beauty of excelling is here. Excellence is still a habit, but one that I can finally say that I have under control.