Perfection, Reconsidered

Perfection. Some people, like Sara Jenks would say, fck it. Fck the idea of perfection. If you do, you might live more and weigh a little less #challenge… But, I’m not some people, and unfortunately, perfection is one thing I am after. I did not take the challenge. I weigh too much.

But on the 12^th day of the challenge, I began to think more about perfection. Mostly because my women-lady-friends were busy fck’in it.

Day #12: Friday, 9/26, F**k Perfect: Today I want you to think about what's not perfect (about your body, life, relationship) and love it anyways. For me, it's my belly. Although my stomach isn't tight or smooth, to me it is perfect. We all have different faces, hair color and feet, and we see all as unique and beautiful. Why do we feel the need to all have the same stomach? Mine is different. I've gone through different things, had different experiences and have a unique constitution. A HUGE part of living more is acceptance. If we can't accept and love our bodies now, we can never take care of them. Think about it, we take care of things we love, not the things we hate. So if you're brave enough, post a picture of what isn't perfect, but you love anyways.

…and I remember that one time I reconsidered perfection. If I was brave enough to do this challenge with my friends, I probably would have said something like:

Lots of things about me aren’t perfect, and they won’t ever be. And that bothers me. And I spend a great deal of mental, emotional, material, physical everything into reaching perfection. And though I’m not there yet, the fact that I believe I can attain it #ImALeo, motivates me. But there is this one thing that I haven’t been perfect at in my life. One particular thing that I have 0 wins, and ALL loses. Relationships. Every relationship I have ever been in has ended (not a big surprise, right? Relationships end). And though the cast changed, the script was always the same. It always ended, always …him… leaving me. Never the other way around. Stunned by the departure. Not ready for it to end. Wanting to do whatever it took to make it work. Holding on way too long after the door closed. …him… Always went away. Told me in his unique way, but left all the same. And somehow their leaving worked out well for them. Like it made their lives better. I suppose these things are a lot like science. Energy, like love, perhaps isn’t created. It’s just transferred. And they always took a little more with them than they came in with. And I was always left with less.

Anyway, that time I reconsidered perfection…

The problem with perfection is knowing that you will never be the one thing you aspire to be – perfect. The perfect daughter, the perfect sister, the perfect friend, perfect student, perfect professional, perfect stranger…and yes, the perfect girlfriend. To most, the idea of perfection is a disease, a mental dysfunction. It’s such an absurdity, that when someone mentions that they aspire to be perfect, they imperfectly take a seat in front of the firing squad of all the experts in life… nobody’s perfect … it’s impossible … you have to live for you, you can’t live to please everybody else … it won’t work…it just won’t work. And I suppose they are right. After all, where has perfection gotten me?

So how is it that I’ve come to be what I am now? A fount of mis-steps. I did everything wrong… I hate his friends, I make all these double standards, and he cannot talk to me… We argue about the same things over and over again. Over and over again…this is a new one for me…especially when attached to an error. Doing and saying all the wrong things. Not being considerate, or understanding, or kind enough? Just not. Doing the opposite of everything I intend. Having to note that my intentions were always good, always decent, always perfect.

I have been completely imperfect. I forgot to do things I didn’t know…didn’t think about the things nobody ever told me I should, and I tried all over the place. And I own that it wasn’t right – and that’s just the truth. That’s how it ended. With the truth. With that truth in particular. Although, that was the truth we discussed in those arguments in which we had about the same things over and over. I said, didn’t say, did and didn’t do all the things I was and wasn’t supposed to do. This is by far one of the most difficult times in my life…everything is unplanned, undecided and completely not figured out. My relationship is over, work is almost unbearable, and I am so far away from the people I love.

So I found the energy to make it to Church – and before Noon no doubt. I have come to appreciate multiple Church services so much that my comfort level with “mega-church” is increasing by the week. I sat a few rows from the front feeling like an outsider. I have been outside of myself for these past couple of weeks that remembering how to be in Church seemed so foreign. I couldn’t sing like I wanted. I couldn’t praise like I wanted, I couldn’t be any of the things that I wanted to be because I did not want to. I had no desire to. Who I was ended something so special and important to me, caused me so much grief at work, and hadn’t brought any new friends into my life…so she isn’t the person I want to be. She is too flawed… Couldn’t even pray any words than “help”…hoping that Jesus would have mercy enough to feel in the blanks…

My favorite part of service, surprisingly enough is the message. For a lover of music like myself, I’m sure that comes as a surprise, but not really when you think about it. Lemme ‘splain somethin to’ya. I’m an academic (translation: I’m a nerd). The message has always spoken to me! Because more than music, there are words. There have always been words, and a speaker with a humble message delivered plainly has always made the difference… Today’s Message: Lasting Relationships. err? The Heck? Talk about fate. Fate, and what would soon turn out to be a most thought provoking message.

I questioned every single thing I did in our relationship. Good and bad. Because of one statement. I suppose I will continue to question until peace finds me because those words haven’t changed. And I suppose if they ever change, they will be in the form of well, you did this, that and the other, BUT… There is always a but…a big old fat but. The words, I can’t see any of the good, because of all the bad will make anyone with a broken everything question anything. And these days…hello…it’s all broke.

Lasting Relationships. That’s the part that burns. I believed that my relationship would last. That there would be good days that would melt my heart with just a fleeting memory, and bad that I would dare not wish upon anyone – days I would shield my sisters from...and love would be in them all. No matter the days we had, he is done with it all, and really only remembers the worst of it. Why don’t I remember the worst of it? Why don’t I feel just like him? Why am I not already okay with it all, and moved on? He did, he moved on, and obviously his life is well now, so why isn’t mine well? Why am I so sad, that it drives me to anger? I’ve boxed up some really hard things in my life, but this…this is face down in a cardboard grave too small to fit it all in, adjacent to the couch. It mocks me.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Church in Philippi while he was in jail, confessing his undying love. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now… Pastor Hilton began talking about how Paul founded the Church at Philippi some time ago, and though the years passed the Church was ever in Paul’s heart. His affection despite it all and through it all never wavered. He then made a statement that pretty much brought tears to my eyes, there’s just something about staying with someone. That is the complete truth – there is.

And I stayed. When I felt like he had no desire to meet any of my friends, and I felt like we talked about the same stuff all the time, and when I felt like those deep things of me I had to hold back. For everyone has their season(s). We live in the world and the reality is, the world will give you a set of circumstances like the mystery baskets on Chopped…always a curveball, or the occasional set of odd things that seem to have nothing in common that will for a moment, confuse you to no avail. Before I ever said I love you I know that it was love. Because we can’t (and I didn’t) love like the world, we cannot start off strong and drift away – there is something about staying with someone. There is something about commitments that last and covenants we keep.

The Church loved Paul just as much. Pastor Hilton described the Church’s affection three ways. They gave Paul support, friendship and fellowship. He went on to make the ever-present but plain analogy. What people today would stand behind their preacher if he were in jail? People who loved him. People who trusted his mission until it became THE mission, THEIR mission – a shared mission. While he was in jail, through the hard times, they never left him. They loved him from the first day until now. As it goes with many relationships I have not been able to understand, on the surface it doesn’t make any sense. To forgive the person that broke the vows. The break up and make up over and over again. The relationships we saw, hanging out at the bottom of Bruin Walk, that for no apparent reason us educated black folks could surmise, would stand through anything. What magnificence that was to see… A person, who stands beside a person that others would caution you against.

I loved him from the first day. In 2008. I suppose I even loved him in that first beginning – the my baby daddy one in April of 2003. Anyway, 2008, I ran away from Tennessee in a gassed up green Ford Explorer to crash ACPA and see my KSJ. We sat in the Cheesecake Factory trading memories, creating moments and drinking martinis. Until now. Wherever this place is we are/aren't.

I want to stop loving. The worst part is, sometimes I believe that to stop loving is really what I want. To not love at all. My “twin” would tell me something similar to the message I heard that day. The problem (really not a problem) is that when you love without limits you give people a trust they may not deserve. I understand it, because I am a scholar, but the logic behind it is all messed up. Isn’t this what we all deserve? Trust? A trust without limits? He doesn’t believe I trusted him, and that is just not true at all. He had a trust he did not deserve because I loved him sans limits. What wouldn’t I do? What wouldn’t I give? What wouldn’t I try? And how much did I forgive? Forgive and never speak of again? All the things I trusted he would say no matter what his intentions were that day. All the things I trusted that he would keep between us, that he didn’t.

I can’t stop loving. Honestly, I haven’t figured out how, which hasn’t come from trying. Oh, have I tried! But just like my best friend said, that isn’t really me, and it’s not the person I want to be. We keep giving to a love we believe in, we sacrifice for a vision we trust. Why could I only see the vision? Why did I put so much stock in it? The life we described in our first days was the life I wanted. 

So what is it about the first anyway? I imagine when Paul founded the Church in Philippi there wasn’t a sour thought or doubt in his mind. He had a vision from someone that he loved, and he trusted that vision. I imagine he knew there would be hard times, but I don’t believe he ever thought about a time in which he and his love (the Church) would ever be apart. He’s human, so it’s possible he considered the possibility, but never seriously. I don’t think Paul ever prepared for a time in which his affections for or his desire to be with them would change – no matter how they changed or their desires changed. Much like Pastor Hilton, Paul refuse[d] to lose confidence in [their] beginning, how God brought [them] together.

God’s beginnings are miracles. They really are. And we, in very different ways we lost sight of the miracle of our beginning. We met when neither of us was looking for anything but a lunch and drunks kinda moment… Good food, good fun, a good time. That was just enough. Us in a moment only to have happened by a miracle. I guess you’d wonder how something so miraculous could end. Wounds in our way. So many wounds. Seemingly unforgivable curses. We had a vision we did not share. The wounds got in the way of the conversations I wanted to have but was afraid to have because his ears were waxed gross. Sharing the vision is saying ‘I do and I die’ daily. We didn’t do much…we died a lot, but not always to ourselves in our sacrifices for each other, to the world.

 

…because, as bad as I want it, I have to want me more. Love me more. So, fck perfect. #MadePerfectByMyImperfections #IAmAllThatIAm