Becoming is messy work.
I’ve always considered myself a bit of a perfectionist. I secretly took pride in it and tucked my fear behind it. That is until I agreed to have a second child and we had twins instead. My husband and I were quickly outnumbered and we spent years shoveling out from the chaos of 3 babies under 2. Some of the best things that happen you don’t plan.
Life was no longer perfect. At least I couldn’t make it so all on my own and I didn’t even have the energy to pretend. So we called in reinforcements and I learned to readjust. The bar had to be set way lower.
And now with three teenagers under one roof, well, perfect is something that looks enviable from a distance. Perfect would be nice I think wistfully sometimes. But perfect has lost a bit of its shine.
It’s the struggle beneath the facade that fascinates me. Mine, other people’s, and how we seem to mirror each other. I don’t judge as much as I used to while striving to understand more… on the good days. I’m still practicing but hey, we’re all just trying to work it all out before the timer is up (again). I’m writing it down so I can remind myself tomorrow when I forget again.
There’s a delicious vulnerability and raw tenderness in the becoming though.
I always thought with enough discipline, becoming perfect someday would be the real prize. But it’s the booby prize and the messy bits in between are far more exciting. Maybe I’ve just become used to messy.
I have noticed these days I’m not as hellbent on eradicating the parts of myself I find intolerable. The striving now is largely the tearing down of the scaffolding once built to hold me together and the practice is sifting through the debris with gentle curiosity and compassion when it’s available.
Somewhere along the climbing up and down and the dismantling, the becoming is beginning to soften into a remembering. That becoming is what I hope to capture here in snippets of memories, glimpses of discoveries, and impressions of what once was and what could be.
So come as you are and stay as long as you like.
Photo taken at Aro Ha Wellness Retreat
