work in progress
I’m sure none of you have taken notice of my absence since July, but I most certainly have considering I’m paying to keep this trash up and running and I’m not exactly utilizing it to its full potential. But for those of you who missed my boundless wit and bountiful wisdom, I suppose the reason I haven’t written is because I have felt quite devoid of all that lately. My life has been in a perpetual state of messy, and there’s something about feeling like you are out of control that keeps you from telling people about it.
Not that this blog has been any kind of plethora of self-help tips or anything resembling an advice column. It’s just that I tend to talk about life on here, and when my life has felt so wildly unpredictable and somewhat unbearable at times, I feel like maybe that’s not something I should share. Social cues or whatever, right? Like I don’t want to be that kid that waltzes into the Chuck E. Cheese birthday party where everyone is having the time of their lives and just goes, “my dog died today.” Really brings the room down.
In spite of all this, while the last four months or so have been heavily transitional and full of an unreal amount of change, it has also involved a lot of self-work. I think there comes a time in everyone’s life where you come to the full realization that you are, in fact, broken. Of course, many of us know this from the get-go, to a certain extent. But to know it fully is a little different. We go through life thinking that these broken parts of ourselves are normal or okay or “just life,” which may be true. However, this mode of thinking leads to a dismissal and, occasionally, acceptance of this brokenness. This, I believe, is problematic. Not because our brokenness can ever be fully fixed, but because it can at least be addressed.
We are all broken (some more than others, sure). We are born this way. My thinking, though, is that we do not have to settle for brokenness. My personal belief is that we never reach complete Wholeness until we are reunited with the One who made us to be so. Thus, Wholeness cannot occur on earth. Even so, I believe we can work towards a certain Togetherness while here. In the same way that we cannot settle for living in sin despite the fact that we are saved by grace, we cannot settle for living in brokenness despite the fact that we may never be whole here on earth. All this to say, I have been working on my brokenness lately.
Working on your self is a funny thing, because you are constantly cycling through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. You are elated at some of the self-revelation and self-discovery you are experiencing, but at the same time, you are devastated to find out that you are most likely even more deeply broken than you once thought. Some days you blame yourself for anything that can be classified as negative, and other days you blame everyone around you. Some days you think ‘I’m doing it, I’m getting better’ and other days you think ‘I’ve done it, I’ve gotten worse.’ Some days you feel as if you are letting yourself down with every move you make, and other days it feels as if you are letting down every single person you love. Working on your self is wild, but sometimes it must be done.
I’ve been learning a lot about myself and, as a result, I’ve been learning a lot about the people around me. I have learned that sometimes you may hurt people when you do not mean to, and that some people may hurt you even if they do not mean to. I have learned that you must forgive people, and give people time to forgive you. I have learned that the hard thing isn’t always the right thing, but most times it is. I have learned that sometimes you have to let people go in order to become a better person, both for yourself and for them. I have learned that sometimes the things you are so sure of—the things in your mind that you think are made of stone—are, in fact, made of sand and they can slip through your fingers before you realize it. I have learned that as hard as you try to do everything yourself and to be okay all the time and to be there for others, you really do need other people. So you should tell them you need them. I have learned that sometimes you can go 21 years without really truly knowing yourself, and that it can take a string of difficult decisions and hard conversations to get to a place where you can finally begin the journey of figuring out who you are.
Life is complicated and people are broken, but life doesn’t last forever and neither does pain. Not being okay is okay, and working on yourself is a intricate, bewildering, beautiful adventure. But it is worth it, and so are you.
Piper
little reminders that times can be sweet even if life feels a little bitter