If You’re Perfect, You Won’t Understand

Go no further in this post if your life is a chair of bowlies. Because you won’t understand.

A friend of mine from high school once told me that she never confided in me from afar (we live thousands of miles away from each other) because she assumed that everything in my life was really good based on some photos she saw.

Let’s dispel some assumptions right now. I’ll keep my personal matters vague, only to protect and anonymize those whose privacy would be blown if I spilled my beans completely. But otherwise, let’s just say we all have our crap to deal with.

Yes, I write a blog about living on Orcas Island. Yes, it is stunning. (The island or the blog, whichever you prefer.) Yes, I get to be a stay-at-home mom. Yes, I eat three meals each day and have never had to miss even one. Yes, I grew up in a loving home, went to college, and have had an adventurous life. And yes, I’m alive and thankful for it.

But I have my struggles too. Every single day. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I’m up blowing my sleep at 1:30 in the morning even though school’s up to me when I wake up tomorrow. Gotta write till my frustration is soothed. Been writing journals-full for umpteen years for sanity’s sake. Certain personalities within my sphere don’t allow for smooth sailing. Or limitless laughter. Or heavenly harmony.

And no, I don’t look in the mirror with satisfaction, either. Or at least I didn’t until about a year ago. Self-judgment since my teen years. Something must’ve shifted recently, come to think of it. I don’t really care as much about the media’s take on how I “should” look. I don’t care as much about that deep-seated judgment inside of me that says I’m not sleek. But trust me, I still long to hear the word “beautiful” about 1,000 times more than I ever actually do.

When you’re in the thick of it in life, going through all the “right” motions to try to do all the things everyone around you needs (and wanting to do it, I should add), sometimes you get little to no feedback. For years. And you wonder how it’s all gonna work out, for all that life effort you put into every single minute. You wonder if it all matters to anyone but you and God.

Right now, I wonder if the struggles matter. I’m choosing to have the struggles that would be easier not to have. I’m fighting for what’s right in many aspects, and it doesn’t necessarily ever feel good. I’m fighting for young souls to stay preserved. I’m fighting for parental respect. I’m fighting for other things that end up making some days just one long battle that no one notices but me.

I can miss the younger phases. The wonder. The hope I always had in every single thing. Today it’s less sparkly. More serious. Lots of discord at times. Self-preservation that sometimes means locking down and not giving in. Looking out for several generations of people around me who don’t as much seem to look out for me.

Perhaps that’s just it. With age comes more junk. Less being cared for. More hard-ass. More buckling down. Not quite the floating of lightheartedness that characterized the me that always was.

I don’t talk about it. I don’t tell anyone much; that just prolongs and deepens it all. But it’s good for you to know, in case you assume that all is well when you see a few photos of someone smiling. Or in case you’re in the same boat with me.

Yes, when we pass in the store, I’ll be smiling and laughing with you. And I’ll be genuinely happy to see you. Because all the yous out there lift me up. But with every passing day, I understand and experience more deeply the idea that “a woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets.” The elderly lady said that in the movie Titanic, and I never forgot it. It’s melancholily true.

There’s a lot, emotionally, that I miss right now. Can’t get it from other sources but not getting it from the present ones.

So be nice. Be gentle. Raise up rather than tear down. You may never visibly see someone’s struggles. They may never voice them because it’s more heart-wrenching to talk about them than deal with them silently. And know that you, too, are not alone in your struggles. I am with you. Quietly.

My brother wrote this above his bunk bed when he was a kid:

“Isn’t it strange that princes and kings and clowns that caper in sawdust rings, and simple folk like you and me are builders of eternity? To each is given a bag of tools, a soul to save, a set of rules. And each will fashion, ‘ere time is flown, a stumbling block or a stepping stone.”

Just doing my best to be a stepping stone. Holding up others but underfoot a lot nonetheless.

“Do not judge. You do not know what storm I’ve asked her to walk through.” -God