Descriptive Essay About Crayon

When I was little, I hated crayons.

I prided myself on my superior fine motor skills. I always colored inside the lines, and cut paper perfectly along the thick black outlines even if I took twice as long. I always had neat, legible handwriting that all the other first graders envied (or so I thought).

Crayons, to my six-year-old mind, symbolized everything that was wrong with the world. The color was always lumpy and uneven, so it was virtually impossible to color completely inside the lines. Crayons smelled like burning cardboard mixed with old potpourri, and broke too easily. I could never sharpen them, even with a special crayon sharpener, so they were as nice as when they 'd first come out of the box. After I used a crayon once, the point would become rounded, defective. Eventually, the paper wrapping would slide off or the crayon would get so short I would have to tear away the label. The crayon wasn 't perfect anymore. It was ratty. Blunt. Short. Ugly.

Ten years later, I still have something of a profound preoccupation with perfection.

Recently I was making a birthday card for a friend. It was beautiful - I had cut out flowers from construction paper and pasted them on. I meticulously outlined each flower with glitter glue and drew "Happy Birthday," braving the

My blind ambition for the ideal has made me lose sight of the practical. This perfectionism is a drug I 've abused, and now it 's taken me over the edge. Finally, I 'm beginning to understand what my friends and family have been telling me. I need to end this fanatical quest. Most of my life is spent at school, working, or at home in my room, working. My mother complains that she never sees me, and she 's right. I 'm not even sure my brother and sister know what I look like, let alone the kind of person I am - other than being an overstressed workaholic. In trying to perfect what could never be perfect, I waste hours that could be better