Less Than Perfect

Most people would tell you that perfection doesn't exist...but it does. I've felt it.  I've felt it so deeply that I was left speechless, without the ability to think and quivering from the sheer realization that perfection does exist and I just had it.

Knowing that perfection does exist, knowing that I will never again search for it because I've had it, what matters for me now is less than perfection.  I want the fight, the passion, the vulnerability, the rawness, the mess that anything less than perfection requires.  Perfect is wrapped up neat, tidy, not messy, not a struggle.  Perfection is easy...simple...not complicated...it's purely perfect with no downside.

Having experienced perfection, I know what I want is the downside.  I want less than perfect.  I want messy, emotional, laughter, loyalty, vulnerability, friendship, passion...all the ups and downs that anything less than perfect requires.  

For ever, for always, I will have perfect memories.  I will smile when people say perfect doesn't exist because I know it does.  I will smell certain smells, hear certain sounds, see certain sights and know that perfect exists.

Last night as I walked away from the sunset, I looked back over my shoulder and saw perfection.  A beautiful, amazing and perfect picture.  I smiled.  A deep, from my soul, smile full of gratitude for having experienced this perfect sunset after a perfect day.  And I yearned for more...in the moment of perfection I yearned for me.  I yearned for less than perfect.  I yearned for something that doesn't always have to be tidy and neat and perfect.  I yearned for the ability to be messy and say everything in whatever way it comes out knowing that being less than perfect is okay.  I experienced perfection last night...and it was perfect.

I want more than and less than perfect.  I want to be left breathless with wonder.  I want to be curious about what comes next.  I want to have the unpredictability that less than perfect brings.  Raw humanity...tears, struggles...the stuff that passion is made of...that's what I want to experience.

I want to sit at a table with someone I just met and laugh until tears come. I want to be so anxious to know more that even after five hours of non stop talking, there' still way more to say and hear. I want to be surprised by the shared imperfections.  I want my less than perfect self being welcomed by another less than perfect self.  This is the stuff that less than perfect brings.

I have been blessed to have experienced perfection and it is perfect.  More perfect than my wildest imagination.

I want more than and less than perfect.

Standing On The Edge - Part II

We were standing on the edge, looking at the wide expanse of the future in front of us.

'Take my hand' he said.  'Take a leap of faith with me.  Jump in.  Both feet. I got you.'

I took his hand, took one precarious step in his direction, then stopped.  I stood still for a moment.  I could feel the warmth of his hand, could hear the timbre in his voice saying "I got you". 

For the longest, that's what I wanted - someone who got me. Someone who chose me in every circumstance.  Now, here I was, being offered exactly what I'd asked for. No equivocations, no compromises, no games...just a straight up commitment to choose me every day.

'Take a leap of faith. I got you.'

I took his hand, took a step in his direction and then, like Lot's wife, I looked back.  I looked back to my recent past and realized there's a ghost lurking there.  There's a ghost of 'what ifs'.  There's the lure of perfection. There's the ghost of a different choice...a choice I'm still making every day. 

I could feel his hand, see his eyes meeting mine, feel his breath on my skin, hear his voice in my ear: 'I got you'.  

The sound of that was like a siren calling a ship to crash on her rocks.  It was passionate, enticing, surreal, and exactly what most people wait to hear. 'I choose you in every circumstance.'

I walked away from the edge, turned my eyes from the vast expanse of the future, felt the moment from the inside out.  I could feel the warmth of his hand, I could feel his breath on my skin, I could hear the sound of his voice in my ear, I could see his eyes pleading with mine...and could feel my heart beating to a different rhythm, could feel the sound of another voice, the lure of perfection, the embodiment of an ideal.  

I dropped his hand.  I moved away from the sound of his voice.  I found the sound of my own voice.  I felt the beat of my heart.  I heard myself say:

"I choose me.  I choose to look at the vast expanse of the future and take a path that makes sense to no one but me.  I choose to follow the beat of my heart and see where it leads."

But the ideal is not real. It's an idea I created in my head, willed to come true and know that perfection is just something to be enjoyed momentarily. Perfection happens...that I now know.  What I also know is that when love looks you in the eye and says 'take a leap of faith with me', you leap towards love.  You follow the beat of your heart as it learns to beat in rhythm with another.  You leave behind what if's and if only's and you move towards the vast expanse of your future.

So, I listen to the sound of my heart beat, recognize the sound of my own voice saying 'just breathe and trust the path you're on. Trust a journey you may not understand.'

A Reason, A Season, A Lifetime

When we learn the lesson, we say thank you and move on. 

When the season changes, we say thank you and move on...or...

We spend a life time giving and receiving gratitude.  

It's important to know the difference between people who are intended to teach us lessons, or see us through a season, rather than spend a life time with.  Sometimes we - meaning me - confuse the teachers or seasonal companions as life time people.  It's in trusting our gut when it says 'hey, you've learned all the lessons you can from this person'...or 'hey, the season is over, you don't need this crutch anymore'.  Listening to what my Soul needs versus what my body or material needs may be. 

Even though it can be difficult to tell the teachers goodbye, when the lessons are learned the purpose is served and it's time to say gratefully and graciously say goodbye.  Knowing that the lessons have prepared me to be a better woman for the lifetime people.  

When the season is over and it's time for a change, like cleaning out the closet, no matter how long the task is avoided, eventually it has to be done.  When the fit no longer works, when the comfort is no longer there, it's time to say goodbye.  You wouldn't wear a wool sweater on a 90 degree day...it's important to know what is appropriate for the season and act accordingly.  

When my soul is too wounded for deep emotional connections, people come into my life to attend to the physical and material leaving me space to heal my soul.  There's no demand for me to give anything of my soul, my heart, or my emotions.  But when that season of healing has ended and my soul is ready for meaningful connections, the season for light and breezy is over. It's time to cuddle up, get close and get deep.  

The lesson people, the ones here to teach me something, can last a day, a week, six months.  Six months...six months of lessons learned. Maybe six months is a season and a reason...lessons learned, healing created, gratitude given. 

The season is changing, the reason is clear.  Thank you...thank you...thank you.  It's time to head for deeper waters.  Deeper waters where the surface waves don't have such an impact.  Deeper waters where a myriad of life sources are waiting to be discovered.  

If you're afraid of the water, I'd recommend not getting in.  My waters run deep. 

Broke

How many times can something break, before it's broken?

Damaged

Totalled

Irreparable

Beyond Repair

Can broken be beautiful?

There is a Japanese tradition called 'kintsugi' in which broken items are repaired with either gold or silver plating making the object more beautiful and the brokenness becomes part of the object's story and beauty.  Without the brokenness, it wouldn't be beautiful.

While I continue to break, stuff around me breaks and I stay broke, I'm learning to repair the brokenness with something more beautiful. Making my brokenness part of my beauty.  Filling in the cracks with kindness, respect, perspective, gentleness, forgiveness and compassion...for myself and those around me.

Life is amazing and beautiful and hard and joyful and sad and perfect - in equal measure.  There are moments where I feel pure perfection and those moments allow me to escape...to stop thinking...to just be in this moment at this time.  While I'm so incredibly thankful for those moments, I know they are temporary and cannot sustain me.  Conversation, connectedness, compassion...those are the things that are the gold to fill in my cracks.

Collage is an amazing art form that takes pieces of things that seemingly don't belong together and creates something beautiful of the pieces.  My life is much like a collage...a collage of moves, and love and success and failure and passion and humor and people who seemingly don't belong together and yet have helped to form the collage of me.

I'm thankful for the perfect escapes. I'm thankful for the friend who seems to text - out of the blue at the most amazing moments - to say 'you're a beautiful and amazing woman and I love you'.   I'm thankful for the friend who I call to say 'I was thinking about something you said the other day.....' and he says "No one has ever thought of me that way before".  I'm thankful for my family who continues to love in such an unconditional manner that it amazes me.  I'm thankful for my friend who calls me just to tell me she loves me...after more than twenty years, she still loves me.  Those the kinds of connection, compassion and conversation that are the gold in the cracks of my heart.

So I may be broke, but I'm not beyond repair.  My repairs are making me more beautiful as I learn to embrace broken and create a life-collage out of the pieces.

Am I Safe Enough To Say No?

Many times in relationship my insecurities have dictated my behavior rather than my security.  One key question when asked a favor I now ask myself:

Do I feel safe enough to say no?

Am I saying yes to this because I fear your rejection? Am I saying yes just so I feel necessary?  It's not important to me what the intention of the person asking the favor is.  It took me decades to figure out that your intention is not my business. I don't need to analyze, second guess, ask why you're asking, or wonder what your next move will be.

The question is: 

Why am I saying yes? 

I was asked a favor today...an incredibly difficult favor that created a sense of vulnerability and exposure in me.  The second the question was asked, my heart raced, my throat caught, my arms got tense, my eyes teared up.  Why, oh why, with this person standing right next to me...within inches of me...did I pray a full moon prayer to practice vulnerability this month?  

Why, last week, when sitting next to him did he say a jackass thing that made my heart race, my throat catch, my eyes tear up?  Why is the Universe pushing so hard to answer my prayer this month?

Because I trust myself.  I trusted my Self enough to ask him why he said what he said and be prepared for whatever the answer was.  I learned a long time ago to not ask a question if I wasn't completely prepared to hear the answer.  It took me a while, I had to contemplate whether to ask and create understanding, or sit in silence and create distance.  I had to decide whether I was strong enough to make whatever decision would honor my Self the most after hearing the answer.  I asked the question, listened to the answer and sat in silence again for a while.  Learning to trust my self and taking chances with vulnerability, connection and truth is risky business.   

I trusted my Self enough to say yes to the favor - unconditionally - without a single question.  I feel safe enough to say no, which allows me to say yes.  Yes, because I care about you.  Yes, because you matter to me.  Yes, because I'm willing to take a risk.  Safe enough to say no, allows the openness and vulnerability required to be me, to grow beyond my own limitations. 

So, while my heart races, my throat catches, my eyes tear up...I practice vulnerability and say yes because I feel safe enough to say no.  

Behind These Walls

My walls are made of punches that left dents in my face, slaps that busted ear drums, empty bank accounts, rejection, denial, exhaustion, hard work, sacrifice, investing in the wrong people, more men's voices when asked 'who's that' answering: no one, my own self limiting beliefs, losing my sister to her love of alcohol...a myriad of bricks packed with the mortar of blood and tears.

Still, I reach over the walls now and again. You need a ride, I'll be there. You need lunch...what is it you want me to bring? You need to borrow something I have, here you go.  It's not that anyone has taken the time to look over the walls I've built, I've just been courageous enough to reach outside of them and be vulnerable, honest and open.

I've spent the last nine months building walls,  tearing them down, reaching over them, adding a few bricks, filling in the mortar with more tears and fears, struggling to not believe the answer: no one.

If there was someone strong enough, tall enough, courageous enough to look over the walls I've built, they'd see compassion, commitment, love, humor, hard work, vulnerability, honesty, willingness, generosity, intellect and dichotomy.

This week has been spent - with trepidation - coming out from behind these walls.  There's rubble, busted bricks, messy mortar, material no longer necessary that needs to be hauled off but the walls are no longer hiding who I am.  The answer to 'who is that' is NOT no one.

I may be your friend, your lover, your co-worker, your sister, your mom, your ex...but the answer is not no one.  In order to be seen, I have to be able to be seen.  It was too easy for others to keep me hidden behind those walls. It was too easy to allow myself to be unseen from behind those walls.

I am either someone in your life, or you are no where in my life.  I haven't made it easy for people to see me or know me.  The walls create a facade that hides the tenderness in my soul. The walls were grand at protecting me from hurt, but they were also grand at keeping me from living and loving fully.

From behind those walls, I've felt 'perfection'. For that I'm eternally grateful.  From behind those walls, I've felt joy.  From behind those walls, I've felt fear.  From behind those walls I've maintained hope. From behind those walls, I've worked hard to grow beyond the need for the walls.

As scary as it may be, here I am...exposed with no walls.  I'm someone to be reckoned with.

I Know What We Are

I know...I know...and still...