I picked my word over a year ago. Like a lot of people say, it kind of picked me. be here. Be here now. Be present, and hear. I was working on my schedule for the semester when out of nowhere I wrote on the top of january’s page: It’s always messier than we want it to be.

It’s always messier than we want it to be

I’m a black and white thinker. I don’t know if it is deeply wired in me via genetics or parental guidanc, but I just think that something is either right or it is wrong. I am trying hard to grow out of the idea that people are either good or bad. 

I am mostly trying to believe that last part about me. 

Good people sometimes do bad thing Bad people sometimes do good things. Mostly we are (as my dear friend Nicole says) we are just toddlers, trying our best, but lashing out, pulling each other’s hair, hitting people we love. We are stumbling, confused, wonderful, inspired, and just plain messy.

This life is messy. Being a person is messy. And being a person in relationship with other people is beautiful, and messy.

It is all so much messier than I want it to be. 

I’m a pack animal. You’ve heard me say it before. I am. I like to do life with people. So inevitably, I dissapoint people, and people dissapoint me. Mostly, we do this, when we put each other on pedestals. It just hurts everyone a little bit more when we fall from those unnatural heights. Sometimes I put people on them, sometimes I climb right up there myself, and sometimes, sometimes I fall off a pedestal I had no idea I was even on. 

I wonder how many times I have done that to people. Made them a little less human, a little more perfect, so that they more easily fit into the ideas I am still clingy too about the simplicity of this world.They break you know, the statues you put on pedestals. The real people inside the china-doll casing tip themselves right over the edge. Your idea of them is shattered, they walk away bruised, everyone gets hurt.

It is always messier than I want it to be.

I have already dissapointed my two-year-old, more than once I am afraid. This time,  I painted my toe nails blue. She preffered the red-orange color I had been sporting for a month or so. After a distinct minute of consideration, she decided to “do my piggies” anyway, even if they were the wrong color. 

This piggy went to market. This little piggy had ROAF BEEF! This piggy went wee wee wee, all the way home. 

Afterward she asks me, again, why my “poes are blue.” She lets me know (again) that she likes them red. Almost a month is a long time for a two-year-old. I wonder how long it will take for her to adjust. Knowing Priscilla, she may never get used to it. What feels like a personal afront to her, was just something I felt it was desperately time for. 

One person’s, it was just time for a change, is someone else’s why would you do that. One person’s, I may have spoken too harshly is another’s I wonder if I’ll ever recover. One person can drop something carelessly and watch as someone else gets impaled by it. 

It is always messier than I want it to be.