Okay, okay, I give up (no I don't)! I give in, I accept this upper respiratory virus (not a chance!) and I accept my current level of functioning (nope!), which is not perfect (no! no! NO!), which is not even all that great (unacceptable!). I will accept four days without a yoga class (nooooooooooo!!!!), and the dirty dishes in the sink (Okay. That one I can do. Definitely for the next hour at least.)
I'm so bad at this imperfection stuff. That's why it's a revolving door of a lesson. I just can't get it right--ha!--I haven't found a way to do imperfection perfectly. I am frankly just very, very uncomfortable with being a flawed human being. I'd rather not have to fail or look foolish ever. And I've worked my ass off to avoid it. Straight A's, Dean's List, a grad school 4.0 at U of M. Nail the interview (pick me! pick me!), woo whoever (like me! like me!), triple-check each checkbox, only play the games I'm good at, avoid any situation which involves throwing or catching a ball, don't guess if I don't know the answer, don't ask unless the question sounds smart. |
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A collection of missed risks becomes a thick facade over time--a campaign-slogan identity constructed of strategic, protective moves. I am a person who is thorough and tireless! I am a person who is likable! I know everything! I don't screw up! You can count on me! How exhausting. And yet how difficult to let go! The hard work of facade-construction and slogan-slinging is an active distraction, another task for the checklist. Exhausting as it is, it's easier in many ways than just relaxing: just being the Being part of human being. That's the biggest risk of all--to let the busyness fall away, and with it the protective layers of campaign-slogan identity. If I'm not fantastic and productive, who am I?
Today, I was not fantastic or productive. I was groggy and sluggish and clumsy. I screwed up a discharge, forgot stuff I've known forever, became impatient about things that it really annoyed me to be impatient about, ate lunch antisocially at my desk, moved slowly, didn't communicate effectively and almost cried at times when it seemed really stupid to almost cry. I was not myself, that is, not the self I advertise. And that is really, really uncomfortable.
Which is why I offer here a little gratitude for this crummy crappy stinky sloppy cold. Thank you. Per usual, this discomfort can be growing pains if I let it. I've read (I can't remember where. If I were perfect, I'd remember) that when Michelangelo carved statues, he felt he was removing the excess marble surrounding a figure that was already there, perfectly formed and waiting to be freed. This sickness is a chisel, then, chipping away what's not me, revealing some more of what's already there, perfect in a cosmic way which has nothing to do with discharge planning or beach volleyball. I'm grateful for the chipping away, and I'd like to keep it, even though it's really, really uncomfortable.
Here too, I'd like to offer some gratitude for friendship's chisel, and for the exponential power of imperfection when it's shared. Hallelujah for a perfectly-timed text from Courtney this afternoon as I was muddling through some mess I'd made. She'd had a little soul-chat with herself last night, she told me via text, and she asked the universe to keep unblocking her blocked stuff even though it sucks and hurts like hell sometimes. She was feeling less than perfectly aesthetically beautiful after all the things that chemo does to a body, and she asked to learn to love herself anyway. So today every single one of her right-eye eyelashes fell out. Ask and ye shall receive exactly the thing you're afraid of if you're ready for it. And she was. A less brave human may have really lost her shit, six weeks out from chemo, bald-eyed despite all the internet predictions for regrowth by now. But my fearless friend accepted the loss with grace I probably couldn't have mustered, because she knew it was just another big chunk of marble crumbling away from what's already cosmically perfect. She thanked life for a scenario that would help to push her out of this lesson's revolving door--a real hard whack of the hammer to a chisel that was perfectly placed. And then she ordered Latisse. Because acceptance doesn't mean sitting on your hands.
So okay. My annoying cold just shrank a little in embarrassment next to chemo problems. But we've all got our revolving doors, our big chunks of really stuck-on marble. We've all spent a lot of time and energy trying to duck the chisel so as not to face what's left when all the campaign-slogan versions of ourselves crumble. And if you've taken the time to read this blog, you're probably among those who, like Courtney and like myself, are ready to try something new. Maybe you're even flirting a little with whatever hand holds the hammer--teach me how to love myself when I feel ugly, show me how to feel comfortable with my imperfection, help me move past this or that fear and become more like myself. I'm ready.
I won't lie. Accepting the lesson was not my graceful go-to. I ingested a pharmacy, drank three gallons of Throat Coat and quadrupled my check-listing and list-checking. But there was some relaxation there under the fight, some awareness that life is happening perfectly even when, or especially when, it's uncomfortable. And there were moments when I could tap into that, especially after Courtney's text. In that relaxation, when I embraced my imperfection--by choice or by force--here's what I found, here's what I always find: under all the stuff that isn't me, there's love. Love is always the perfect form waiting to be revealed. In my weakness, I am love. In my ugliness, I am love. In my embarrassment, I'm still love.
We don't often get to choose the lesson. Cancer, a cold, a difficult patient, lost lashes, whatever--all these chisels, perfectly placed and primed for the blow of some higher-power hammer-holder. The choice we get is this: do we keep ducking the chisel until we're dizzy and spinning and terrified of everything? Do we keep busy in our workshops, constructing facades for every occasion and then propping them up over and over to cover the crumbling places? Or do we relax a little, surrender a little, start to lovingly resemble ourselves a little more, and then go ahead and place that order for Latisse? |