Imperfect Love

Relationships are tough.  It can take a lifetime to encounter a person who has that natural combination of physical, psychological, moral, and lifestyle compatibility that matches your own.  Too many times, we find someone with deal breakers we cannot and should not ignore.  But none of us is perfect, and therefore, none of our romantic partners ever will be.  Not even "perfect for me" perhaps.

But I guess that's what love is.  You learn to accept your partner's shortcomings, flaws, and imperfections.  You choose to love them anyway.  And if we're honest with ourselves, they are doing the same for us when they love us.

Forgiving and accepting another person's mistakes can be difficult, especially when you have been hurt by them. But it takes an honest person to admit that they have made their own share of mistakes and have done their share of hurting others as well.  Because my faith has grown over the course of my life, I am more and more aware of the fact that I am a flawed human being in need of forgiveness.  I am not always easy to love or easy to live with.  God loves me anyway.  As I've come to accept that and truly believe it, it diminishes my human inclination to judge or even cast out other flawed people in my life. 

Love Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry?

I remember at a young age seeing that quote from the movie Love Story...you know, the "Love means never having to say you're sorry" quote.  While I'd like to think I've evolved in many ways from elementary school until now, my response to that quote remains the same: Bull.Shit.

 

Love means saying you're sorry more than ever!  Those we love unfortunately take the brunt of our bad stuff - our worst days, seeing us at our most fatigued, most irritable, and most flawed.  Which is precisely why they deserve apologies if we love them.  They deserve to know that we realize we failed them, that we regret it, and that we will be aware of it moving forward and do all that we can to avoid hurting them in the same way again. 

 

I don't care how old you are, what your title is, whether you're the parent or child, or whether you feel your excrement stinks or not....you are not perfect and you hurt those around you.  It's inevitable.  We are all human.  Furthermore, we can all expect to be hurt by those who love us.  It's what happens afterward that matters.  Do we behave in an arrogant, prideful, stubborn, or cold manner?  Do we become award-winning actors who pretend that nothing happened and attempt to conduct life as usual?  Do we make misguided attempts to erase what we've done with gifts, hugs, money, humor, compliments, etc.?  Or do we....quite simply....look our loved one in the eyes and tell them we are sorry?
 

Maybe we don't even believe we are wrong at the core of the issue, whatever it may be.  Maybe we just need to apologize for the way we said something or the way we made someone feel.  After all, if we don't care about the way we make our loved ones feel, and we don't care about making sure they know that we care about how we make them feel, how can we say we love them?

 

 

 

 

Just One of The White Mugs

My grandmother has been living in a nursing home for just over a year.  At some point, it became apparent that she would not be able to return home again.  She has invited the immediate family to take any of her belongings that we would like.  This is a strange process for me, because it feels like something one would do after the loved one has passed away. 

 

The last time I was at her home, I couldn't identify anything I really wanted to take, other than maybe one of the door handles from her old home.  They are old-fashioned, and I associate them with the house where I spent so many years having fun, being loved, bonding with family, and growing up.  They were difficult to latch when exiting a room, and us kids were forever being reminded to "SHUT THE DOOR!  THE AIR IS ON!"  Clearly, I'm not going to remove the handle & latch fixture though, as it would be blatantly obvious - even with a replacement of some sort - to any future inhabitant of the house. 

 

After  I returned home from that visit, it occurred to me that there was something I wanted, that could easily be removed from the house without effecting its functionality.  I asked for one of the tiny plastic speckled cups that, as a kid, contained juice or Sun Drop with my evening snack.  I also asked for one of the plain white mugs she had in her cupboard.  The mug is not attractive in any way.  It's not etched with the name of a place or a clever saying.  But when MeMa made hot chocolate for me in one of those mugs that she and Granddaddy used, I felt awfully special.  I'd pretend I was a grown up drinking coffee.  I remember the Nestle Quik powder she used to make that hot chocolate, and all the Quik Bunny mugs and spoons she earned us with all the UPC codes.

 

So my mom brought one of the little juice cups and one of the white mugs back for me after her last visit.  I haven't figured out where to put it or what to do with it exactly, but it is an icon of love and comfort that I will forever treasure.

Love Your Guts

Today I conquered fear and trepidation and said the things you needed to hear.  I stopped making excuses and hiding behind things.  Today I tried to save your life.

 

I've sat in silence and worried and prayed about you for years, never having the courage to confront you about your demons.  My silence has only succeeded in creating a mountain of stress and concern over you, but still I refused to act.  Today I felt that I had nothing to lose. 

 

It really wasn't all that hard.  Maybe I had to build up my own faith, which made it easy to share with you.  Because the truth is, I don't believe you can do this on your own.  But I believe that if you let God into your life, you will be blessed with the ability to conquer anything.  I believe you need to humble yourself to the point that you know that God is your only true source of strength.  I believe you need to surrender your ego and your pride and let God rebuild you.

 

And so I finally told you all of this.  What you do with it is your choice.

When You Gonna Love You...?

"When you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?"

~"Winter" by Tori Amos

 

 

I see you flailing around with no direction, just like a struggling swimmer in deep water, treading until you are gasping for breath.  I wonder when you will grow weary of this dance, this game in which you are integrally involved.  It sucks all the energy, strength, and life from you, but you continue to feed from it, hoping for satiation eventually. 

 

Instead, it is draining you, slowly but surely.  It is sucking away the essence of who you are, with little need to convince or persuade you.  You are a willing participant.  You are enjoying the ride....to an extent. 

 

But I know that when night comes, you lie there and wonder how on earth it got this far.  You wonder how much everyone has noticed the slippage, as you smugly reflect upon how skillfully you have pulled the wool over their eyes. 

 

Each day, a part of you briefly considers ending the madness, but each day you muster up the strength to give it a go one more time.  You miss things like peace, a clear conscience, and a sense of stability....but not enough to reunite with them.  And so you flail, spreading your arms in the snow, which at once is beautiful, but slowly freezing you and icing you over to where you are numb and can no longer feel the drop in temperature.  And I wait.

More Than Singing

"Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music."

~Angela Monet

 

 

There are many who sing.  Some sing only when they believe no one is listening.  Some sing regularly in the shower, the yard, or the car, but never into a microphone.  Some sing for thousands in stadiums.  And some sing in church.

 

As it is with any trained vocal performance, I must learn the rhythm, the dynamics, the style, the lyrics, and of course the melody and/or harmony of the song.  It can be quite challenging to recall and perform all of those things in synergy, yet still retain an on-stage presence, or an outward expression of the emotion evoked by the song. 

 

But when you are singing to God, for God, and to inspire the worship of God, there is this whole other element that comes into play, and you had better be prepared to be a conduit for powerful spiritual energy.  Singing while facing a congregation is such an intimate act.  You are permitting the congregation to witness your personal act of worship, and they have no choice but to allow you to witness theirs.  The beautiful thing is the way we feed off one another, like a delicate dance where control and balance are shared and rotated between the partners. 

On their faces, I see smiles, tears, furrowed brows, and all sorts of symbols of the personal journey each of them is traveling.  I know when the music speaks to them.  Some clap, some stand up, some weep.  It energizes me and encourages me to keep giving it my all.  To those with no expression at all...I sing to them in the hopes that will truly hear the message of the song. 

 

 

 

Paying Our Respects

I told them they didn't have to get out of the car when we pulled up to the cemetery.  After all, neither he nor the kids ever met them.  I was the one needing to draw close, to read their names in stone, to pay my respects in my own way.  The kids opted to stay, but he walked with me.  When we reached their graves, we stood there in silence, as if he was absorbing the memories, love, and nostalgia that were emanating from within me.  

 

There was a service plaque at the end of a long metal pole near my grandfather's footstone.  It was rusted and mangled and practically horizontal with the ground.  When he asked why it was like that, I said probably the groundskeeper had hit it with the mower.  He scoffed and made a comment about people being disrespectful. 

 

I watched him remove it from the ground and spend several minutes working to straighten out the metal pole as best he could.  Then I watched him stake it by the footstone, perfectly centered.  I was overcome with emotion for this gesture of respect and honor - for a man he'd never met or loved.  But he knew what PaPa meant to me.  And he knew that he was a hero to me, and that if he hadn't existed, I would never have come into existence.  It was a beautiful moment of tenderness I will never forget. 

 

 

“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood,

but of respect and joy in each other's life.”

~Richard David Bach