I've been coming down with some sort of plague for the last week and a half or so. It let up for a few days, and came back with a vengeance on Thursday night, a few hours after I shot with Perry.
At this point, I want the damn virus to quit skulking around like a pussy and just hit me so I can feel even worse for a little while, then recover and put it behind me.

As a result of this, I'm in a pretty terrible mood.
I wanted the subject of my fifth and final dirty little secret to be something suitably juicy and interesting, but not too heavy, something that would leave a good final impression. That's not the way it's going to be.
My ill, tired, disappointed, premenstrual mind has sunk its teeth into a subject, and it isn't letting go.

This is a confession of my greatest flaw, it doesn't get much more secret and honest.

In my life, I can't stand mediocrity.
I hold myself to incredibly high standards, and as a result I compare myself to other people way too much and am prone to serious bouts of envy.
From sixth grade, when they started assigning letter grades, until the day I dropped out of high school at the end of my junior year, I maintained a near-flawless 4.0 and was ranked first in my class. There were a few A minus grades here and there, but my school counted those as A grades. Had an A minus counted as a 3.7, those A minuses would have disappeared.
I won first place in three different categories in every one of the four state-wide French competitions my teacher entered me in, was accelerated two years in math, was a very successful triple threat (Drama/Debate/Forensics) on my high school's DDF team (had I stayed in school for my senior year, I would have been a powerhouse), and was ranked the best bass clarinet player in the region, and one of the best in the state. It didn't matter what subject I was placed into, I aced everything I came across.
My parents would have been happy with me whether I had perfect grades or average ones, so my insane drive for perfection had nothing to do with their expectations, and everything to do with me.

I worked too hard, and as a result my health was horrible.
When I was sixteen, I got sick for two weeks before the end of school and made up those two weeks of work plus all the work I had to do in the final week in the span of five days. As a result, I had a complete mental and physical breakdown.
After that, necessity taught me to relax and be less hard on myself.

In college, my grade point average is around a 3.75 (although after last semester, I'd place it lower). The worst grades I've ever had were two B-pluses, both from notoriously tough teachers, one in a subject I had absolutely no experience in (Visual Arts). In high school, this would have sent me into a fit, but I was pretty happy that I managed to do as well as I did, and felt good about the work I'd done. I still have twinges every now and then when I look at my transcript because it isn't flawless, and I'm still way too hard on myself sometimes, but I've come incredibly far compared to where I used to be.

What most people don't know about me is that this same perfectionism and dread of mediocrity applies to the way I look, too. I've always wanted to be one of the supremely beautiful people, and I hate it that I'm not. I'm by no means a genius, and I wouldn't even call myself brilliant, but I can do some pretty remarkable things with my brain, and I've always been incredibly frustrated that my face and body fall short.
Looking at work done by the superhuman models the top-notch photographers I've worked with is sometimes enough to send me into a discouraged slump. Compared to them, I'm mediocre. I've gone on hiatus before because I couldn't stand that fact, and there are times it makes me want to quit modeling for good.

I'm a terrible hypocrite, in that I shout praises of the beauty of all women from the rooftops and have made a personal crusade out of trying to expand people's perceptions of what beauty is, but given the chance to be beautiful on a level with Mosh, Jayme, Megan Fox, or Scarlett Johansson, I'd take it without thinking twice.

The greatest struggle I face in my life is not against the perceptions of the rest of the world, but against myself.
I faced a tremendous amount of adversity in my life when I was younger and I showed a hell of a lot of resilience and determination. I shouldn't expect myself to not have any remaining issues, but I do, and I feel disappointed in myself for being human and having flaws. Despite the fact that I'm not perfect, physically or otherwise, I've done very, very well for myself, and I'm sure if I stopped being so damn hard on myself and so self-conscious and nervous about approaching top-notch photographers I really admire, I could continue to do so.
My father and grandfather are both unflinching perfectionists who, despite all their accomplishments and all the good they've done in the world, think they're failures. My mother doesn't know how to relax, and couldn't if her life depended on it.
I don't want to end up like the other members of my family.

The fact that I'm so hard on myself has put me in a position to help a lot of people who don't understand the value of being accepting and kind and gentle with yourself, and I most definitely have (particularly at college).
I wish I could take my own advice, relax, and stop wanting to be superhuman. There's a part of me that still wants to be more mature, smarter, stronger, much more beautiful, more talented, more loved and admired, but in my heart of heats I want more than anything to be truly happy with myself just the way I am.

Wow. That was incredibly cathartic.
I feel a little better, now. To those of you who took time to read this, thank you so much for listening.