“I’m fine.”

“Everything is good!”

“I love school!”

All throughout high school, I told lies like these on a regular basis. As a highly motivated, type-A perfectionist, I had no room for depression or anxiety. I had chapters to read, college-level classes to study for and my after-school job. I slammed the door on my feelings and piled my plate even higher. There were always more hours to volunteer, another mile to run or another babysitting job to accept.

Fast forward to present day, and I describe myself as a “recovering perfectionist.” I have learned that I have to let go of this notion that I am not enough unless I am perfect. What is perfect, anyway? I am learning that it is okay if that homework assignment doesn’t get finished, that paper is kind of crappy, or I accidentally wake up 10 minutes before class starts. It is okay to take a mental health day because sometimes sleep is more important than reading literature by dead white men or practicing the preterite in Spanish. It is okay that today is another dry shampoo day, and I’m wearing the same shirt I slept in to class.

Sometimes life really kicks you in the gut. Your classes are difficult, you’re striving to be the perfect student leader on your campus, you encourage all of your friends and you keep a game face on all while struggling to sleep at night, maintain your perfect grades and attempti to move on from the boy who broke your heart.

It’s time to remove the mask. Take the game face off.

As someone who was taught to always say, “Yes ma’am, everything is great!,” to always “fix myself” with makeup, and that everyone doesn’t always have to know what I am feeling, it is certainly hard to admit when I’m going through a difficult time.

But y'all, this life is so beautiful and we are not meant to do it alone. So you bombed that test? That stupid boy broke your heart? Your classes are kicking your butt? I said this life is beautiful, but it is also messy. It is okay to not be okay. You don’t have to have your stuff together. (I sure don’t.) It is during the midnight junk-food trips with my best friends, the heart-to-hearts sitting on my carpet -- often times with a package of cookie dough -- with a group of girls who love me unconditionally, the unexpected grace from professors, that I realize that while everything isn’t okay now, it will be eventually.

You can go through life pretending to have everything together (which I don’t recommend, as this way of life is pretty miserable), or you can take off your mask and join the rest of us. It is a painful process to let go of the idea that everything you do doesn’t have to be perfect. That you don’t have to be perfect. To acknowledge that there is room for those messy emotions.

I say that it's time to knock down that barricaded door and let them in. Let in the broken pieces that you’ve been ignoring for so long, hoping they would magically go away. Let in your friends and allow them to be a part of your living, breathing, imperfect story. Let them hold your hand as you write the rough chapters. Let your story be heard. Not the story of the perfect girl with the perky ponytail who always says ,"Yes ma’am!" But the story of the girl with the messy hair and a messier life, who is learning a little more every day about how to love herself.

Don’t just crack the door. Fling it open and find the love you’ve been hiding from yourself this whole time. Even if it’s on the top shelf in the back of the closet, it is there, I promise. Self-love is tough work, but it is so, so important. Once you stop the soul-sucking work that is known as attempting to be perfect 24/7, life is so much more fulfilling. You have so much more time that can now be used to find your passion, have more friend time and just have fun.

I am bearing my broken pieces to you, reader, with the hope that if you're anything like me, you'll stop running yourself into the ground. That you'll seek help when you need it. That you will make the fulfilling -- but difficult -- choice to sacrifice artificial perfection for genuine connections. It is so worth it. You are so worth it.