The Other Side Of the White Picket Fence

The other day I was talking with a friend of mine. Our conversation turned to the young women I write for and his concern that everything is pointing towards a perfect cleaned up version of how to be a woman. I wondered if I was any part of the problem, the perfection problem.

“Have the Perfect Life!” we seem to sell:  A perfect man, well groomed emotional troubles, a perfectly decorated house, a really amazing Facebook status update about your amazing life of adventure, of course a fulfilling job, a perfect body…or at least one your working on, and the most amazing friends who we can photograph, tag, and show off in our facebook posts…and just enough authenticity to make it seem you’re telling the truth. Are we all trying to create a life where we only show our best side?

I couldn’t stop thinking about our conversation. It was a good one, but a short one. I went home, I got out my teal blue anthropology colander and washed some beautiful blueberries under the water. I enjoyed the aesthetic of the dark blue against the teal and liked how they looked in my refrigerator. I love color. I love the small things. I could snap a picture of this moment and it’s beauty. The simple moments are my most cherished ones, but do I show the world the messy side of my life? Am I willing to publicly come undone?

In college my life was changed when two women came undone before me. I didn’t know them personally, but they had the courage to tell the truth in their writing. They let me see their mess, and it made me breathe a little better in the midst of mine. Sabrina Ward Harrison published her art journals where she so honestly told the story of her insecurities and triumphs in “Spilling Open the Art of Becoming Yourself” and Anne Lamott told the raw truths of her messy life and faith in “Traveling Mercies.” Both of these books changed me. They let me believe there could be beauty in the midst of my chaos.

I found these books while I was in the middle of my sophmore year of college. I was going to Pasadena City College and working at Starbucks. It was unglamourous and embarrassing to me, but on this soul journey I came to love the mess of it all, even its smelly parking lots that never had a space for my car. I’d left the expensive, prestigious Christian college because I’d mostly slept, made out with my boyfriend, and laid in my dorm room in a bit of an emotional comma earning a D in New Testament because I couldn’t see straight to memorize all of the cities along Paul’s journey to wherever he was going to and from planting churches. The summer before my senior year of high school a youth pastor had been hired at my church and he had abused about 4 of us and 20 more had felt icky…and so I was one of the 4 and the 24 of us told our stories and he was fired. He spent the next 10 years stalking me because he knew my voice to be one of the strongest testimonies. Oy vey. My twenties had a bit of a strange music over them. No wonder I gained some weight. I dodged between moments of terror and relief in those first years. 

I developed a little dance with an eating disorder. I never got scary skinny, so no one probably took it all very seriously, but the wounds to my soul were deep and wide. I could loose weight in a heartbeat and gain that powerful feeling that only leads to crazy. I’d starve myself for weeks on Diet Coke and flour tortillas and then eat a few calories in mindless need, only to discipline myself with bulimia. I believed, “oh if only I could be thin no one would know how chaotic this world is feeling all around me.” 

I’m about to turn 32 this week. I like being in my 30s and I’m not just saying that to be positive. I really do. I want to show you the messy side of my life. I believe that this year is the year I'll start telling you the whole story. I am ready to have some courage, to step out, to let you see. I want you to see how all the little and big things have had their place in making me whole even while I was coming undone over and over again. I have so much beauty and depth in my life, but much of  my contentment, the peace in my eyes has been long earned through many bouts with suffering.

This life has not gone the way I would have planned. I’ve had friends sit me down to tell me they are HIV Positive, I found my best friend on the streets of Hollywood all skinny from crystal meth, hollow and haunting in his eyes and held his bony arms begging him to get help and go to rehab. I’ve held the hand of Monica in hospital, my childhood friend, while she was in a comma fighting for her life and a third liver transplant. I’ve walked into my childhood church to attend the funeral of Ashley, who I did almost everything with, because she died tragically on a cruise ship one morning in October. Now many of my memories of my childhood are veiled with a little bit of sorrow. I’ve been assaulted and abused and I’ve lost fifty of the pounds I used to cover the beauty I thought was dangerous to live with. These are the scars that have made my life have depth and purpose and direction. I don’t walk with them as my banner or my cry, but they are the stories inside of my soul.  I have a whole list of incredible beautiful things I could list right next to all this pain. My banner is redemption. My story is renewal…over and over again.

Some of it I find very embarassing. I haven't wanted to show anyone. I'd rather clean up my mess first. I know something true: this is life. It is messy. It will keep unraveling and coming back together as if it is the way this world breathes. 

My life has been so messy.

My life has been so beautiful.

My life has been a mixture.

This year I will tell you both sides of the story.

I want you to see the paradox and truth of this life is a dance between them both.

 

You might hate your job.

You will probably fall in love.

You might get sick.

You will probably create something beautiful.

You will be the friend someone has been dying to have.

You might loose some friends.

You will probably have your heart broken…several times.

Someone might go to jail…or have a baby when the time isn’t just right…or go to the hospital and not come home.

You might be embarrassed, afraid, abused, neglected, misunderstood…

but you are not alone.

The words of a wise woman in my life ring in my ears, “Kristie, there are worse things in this life than pain and suffering, the worst thing is an unlived life.”

In the words of my favorite poet:

“Let us go then you and I as the evening is spread out against the sky…” –TS Eliot

Let’s live our life, because we’re never alone and we must take some risks to truly see the beauty and depth of color our life could be painted with. There is nothing perfect about this life, but it is an aching beauty worth living fully.

I will show you my mess. I will tell you the truth. I hope it gives you freedom to exhale and whisper a quiet, “me too.” 

Comments

[Katy Trotta]

Kristie, Thank you so much for sharing. I can't express my gratitude for your honesty and how much it helps people like me. <3

[Tam]

Such beautiful, beautiful transparency. Love this, love you. Love the beautiful mess that we both have been and will continue to be, because we're LIVING.

[Mary (Mary's Musicology)]

This was so good to read. Thanks for sharing :)

[Nicole Corpuz]

Thanks for the honesty and optimism. So inspiring! Keep on sharing, your voice is heard & appreciated!

[Buy Kamagra]

Unusquisque vis ad review super hoc ut communicavit nobis, Lorem