Not Everything

Do you ever feel like you can't run from yourself fast enough?

Like every decision you’ve ever made is eternal, but that knowledge alone is not enough to keep you from acting on your idiotic impulses and the thoughts of your bad heart?

Yeah. Me too.

I don't know.

I guess I just want to believe I don't have to be that person anymore. I want to believe I can transcend instant gratification and be wise. Truly wise. That I would stay away from things that are bad for me, and cling to the things that grow me, nourish me, help me to heal. I don't mean to be tragic, but sometimes I just don't see a way out and I’m overcome with my own inability to… well, overcome.

So what now?

I guess I lay on the dirt until I get tired of the way it itches my skin, or get freaked out by the bug trying to suck the lifeblood from my face.

Or maybe I just look up. Look at the sky… the clouds… the trees swaying overhead or the moon and stars. And then I just breathe and let myself feel whatever I'm feeling. Itchy. Uncomfortable. Sad. Angry. All of it. I might cry, or maybe I’ll sing a hymn or the jingle from my favorite commercial.

The point is, what’s next is to just be. To remind myself that it’s okay for me to borrow oxygen from the world on which I exist.

It’s okay that I’m a little jaded and broken and messy and kind. Because I am. Because the fact that I have bad in me doesn't mean I can't also be gentle and funny and passionate and clever.

The people who love me will love me whether or not I am those things all the time.

So maybe today I let my smile drop until there’s something to genuinely smile about. Maybe if someone asks me if everything is okay, I’ll have the courage to say, “not everything,” and shrug.

Maybe that will make them feel awkward. Or maybe it will give them the courage to be honest, too. After I shrug, I’ll smile at the surprise on their face and I’ll think of something that will make us both feel better.

Like the fact that it’s almost Friday… or my idea to invent chocolate that will burn calories and simultaneously take me back in time for the sole purpose of throwing something at my own head before I make another stupid decision.

Did you smile?

Good.

I'm glad I could make you smile. Feel something other than tragic as you read the ramblings of a random woman on a Thursday.

You're not alone. I hope you feel that, too.

And now that you're here… I suppose I’m not alone either, so thanks.

Sometimes I don't need to make sense of what's happened. I just need to acknowledge that it did. And it mattered. And sometimes I still feel it. In the quiet.

I close my eyes and I'm back there, where it hurt. Where it changed me. Where I was seen... and I saw. And I loved and I sinned. I look there and I acknowledge that it's not either/or. It's both/and.

I don't have to pretend to be more than I am. Because if I am anything less than perfect, that makes me human. And I'm allowed to be that. Im allowed to make mistakes and forget to say I'm sorry. And I'm allowed to regret that, too.

It's behind me now. But it matters still. I'm forgiven. But I'm still me. Still... messy.

And... no.

Not everything is okay.

But this is.

I'm okay with myself right now.

And that's enough.