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The opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at SBU chapter.

My name is Natalie Merrill, and I am not perfect. 

My first semester of my senior year is coming to an end. What I thought would be a fun and easygoing semester was actually a semester of a lot of hard work and self-reflecting.   

“So how do you feel when someone gives you negative feedback? Or tells you you’ve done something wrong?”

When my therapist asked me this question last month, I had to face a harsh fact about myself: I like to ignore when I am not perfect. I do not do well with negative feedback, or admitting when I am wrong or have done something wrong. 

I have spent my entire life trying to be perfect, always getting close but not quite there. In high school, I was friendly with every friend group in my grade, but I wasn’t really a part of any of them and had some periods where I spent every weekend at home alone. I worked day and night to have the best grades, but I was ranked eighth in my class, not first. I was a starting member of my championship field hockey team, but I could never score a goal.  

I’ve spent a lot of time twisting these facts around to make myself sound better. I graduated college with a 3.99 GPA, and I fought tooth and nail to have the class with an A- omitted from my transcript because I couldn’t accept the fact that my GPA wasn’t perfect. But the truth is, I just haven’t been able to accept the fact that I’m not perfect. 

Sometimes I talk too loudly. Sometimes I take things too seriously. Sometimes I get in a bad mood over something small and let it ruin my entire day. Sometimes I drink too much on a night out. Sometimes I do the opposite of what my therapist recommends. 

I have an RBF. I haven’t been putting my full effort into my school assignments.  I’m a control freak. I interrupt people when they’re talking way too often. And the biggest confession of all that I get very defensive about: I am not a very good driver. Whew, admitting that is a huge deal for me. 

Now here’s where my current struggle lies. How do I admit all of this, admit to not being perfect, while it not turning into insecurity? Shouldn’t these imperfections make me hate myself? But as I grow, I’m realizing that being confident doesn’t have to mean thinking that I’m perfect. It means knowing that I still deserve love and grace, even when I am not perfect. Isn’t that the point of friends and family and partnerships? The people that truly matter will love you even when you are not perfect. And if they can love me when I am not perfect, then I deserve to love myself when I am not perfect.

I try. I try really hard to correct my imperfections. I try really hard to be a good daughter, sister, friend, roommate, girlfriend. And sometimes I fall short. Sometimes I make the same mistakes over and over and over again. I exhaust myself. But I will keep trying. And when I make a mistake, I will recognize it, sit with it, and then move on and continue trying. I will not dwell and spiral into why these mistakes are reasons that everyone should hate me. 

My name is Natalie Merrill and I am not perfect, and that’s okay.  

Natalie, or Nat as most know her, is a new member of Her Campus at SBU! This is her first year in the chapter, and she looks forward to using Her Campus as a way to express herself and rediscover her former love for writing. In May 2024, Natalie graduated with her bachelor's in history with minors in political science and Spanish from St. Bonaventure after three years. She is continuing her education and receiving her master's in adolescence education during what would be her senior year. As an undergrad, she was President of College Democrats, involved in University Ministries and held two jobs on campus. She is currently working as a graduate assistant with the student success center, teaching a FRES 100 class to 14 freshmen and meeting with them each week to help ensure their success in college. Outside of her professional career, Natalie enjoys anything that involves breakfast and coffee. She can talk anyone's ear off for hours on end, and frequently does so with her best friends. Her passions include anything to do with the city of Buffalo (go Bills), politics, her study abroad experience in Oxford, England and her early 2000s camcorder.