My English teachers always told me they couldn’t wait to see my name lining the shelves of a bookstore. After any assignment, they’d pull me aside, a wide smile tugging at their lips and brimming with pride, and they’d say to me, “Morgan, you’re going to be an author some day, I just know it.”

But now, in high school, I’m lucky if my essays score anything higher than an 80.

Obviously, an 80 isn’t the end of the world, and my writing could be worse off than I consider it to be. But, (like my mother is quick to remind me when it’s 10pm and I’ve been crying in my room over an essay that I’ve written and checked and double-checked and rewritten dozens of times, only to scrap the entire thing because it just “doesn’t sound right, I’m illiterate, mom!”) I am my own worst critic.

If I had to guess, my tendency for thinking the absolute worst of myself stems (like all great psychological afflictions) from my childhood; the adults referred to me as the “mature, smart one.” Their expectations for me exceeded the limits of my abilities, but it was okay, because I was “wise beyond my years.” I’d live up to whatever they wanted me to do, and if I didn’t — well, that wasn’t even a possibility in their minds.

So I strove (strived? see, I don’t even know how to speak English) for perfection in every little thing I did, and all the times I failed and failed and failed really took their toll on me. But all of those inevitable failures (of which, there were many; I was a kid, of course I wouldn’t know how to tie my shoe or ride a bike or write a full-fledged annotated bibliography perfectly on my first try) built character! They made me the high-strung, mistrusting and pessimistic young adult I am today, and it’s been an honor and a privilege to have had them along for the journey.

Every time I give up on an opportunity because I can’t nail it the very first time, I owe it all to them.

And, I guess it isn’t all bad — if my work isn’t perfectly perfect, then I don’t have to waste my time finishing it or revising it when I can just as easily not do it. What’s the point in turning a worksheet in or writing a super important essay worth nearly half of my grade when it’s flawed?

Instead of spending all my time and energy and resources on something I hardly want to put my name on — something I will never, in a million billion trillion years, be proud of — I can wait until the last possible second and rush to do subpar work, and for some reason, in my mind, that’s a reasonable trade-off.

Maybe because, if the assignments I turn in are trash, at least it justifiably reflects the amount of time I spent on them. Maybe because I’m afraid of what might happen if I put my heart into whatever I’m working on. If I diligently and meticulously slave over the stats homework or the biology lab or even the solo for concert band we were made to finish in a considerable amount of time, and my grade still plunges, what was it all for?

In a sick, sort of twisted way, I figure if I procrastinate long enough, I’m in control of my failures. I’d rather have some say in how badly others perceive me and the work I put out than try and not meet expectations.

Looking back on the short stories I wrote back in elementary and intermediate school, I can’t help but laugh at…how seriously I took everything. I wrote like my life depended on whether Amy and Jack slayed the colossal, fire-breathing, man-eating dragon in the first chapter of a three-pronged folder stuffed with an entire ream of wide-ruled paper. The passion and pure imagination each page was filled to the margin with is something I couldn’t replicate now, knowing what I know now.

But man, can I BS a mean English IV paper.

Off-the-record, I miss what it feels like to work on things without caring what other people are going to think about me. To find enjoyment in writing make-believe stories that teachers and friends and classmates seemed to like as much as I did, without getting inside my head.

I used to dream of pursuing a career in writing, of signing copies of my New York Times Bestselling book at the Barnes and Noble down by the Parks Mall, of dedicating my first novel to all of the teachers and adults and friends who’ve supported me throughout the years.

Now, I dream of typing words onto a Google doc, and being able to finish my own thoughts before finding something, anything, wrong with it, and never touching it again.