My Utter Imperfection

Life has been a series of realizations lately. I have realized my strength, my beauty, my gifts, but most prominently have realized my weaknesses. If we were speaking as my high school self, I would be ignorant and proud and unable to admit wrong doing. But as I get older (and hopefully a bit wiser) I can more readily acknowledge that I am flawed, perhaps the most flawed of them all. I am lucky that there is grace and mercy, or I would be cast aside like garbage. 


One of the biggest flaws that I am realizing is avoidance. Now, I have been extremely aware of my tendency to avoid for some time now. When I began counselling in 2007, avoidance was probably the most obvious coping mechanism that I used to mask the hurt in my heart. I am an avoider. And while I no longer avoid the hurt that was caused in my childhood, and I no longer look past my scars as if I am looking through a window, I still avoid. It's the most fundamental tactic in my play book. Avoidance is familiar and easy, but so unhealthy.


I have gotten a lot better. If you have known me intimately throughout my continuing transformation, you would know that. But I was taught avoidance from an early age. My parents are the biggest avoiders I know. My family never talked about things. My parents would say that we could talk to them about anything, but that didn't mean "anything". We weren't taught to work out our issues and talk about our feelings. In fact, to feel and express feelings was such a foreign concept to me right into my late teens. The closest I ever got to 'feelings' were the sitcoms that would make fun of it on television. And then I "fell in love" and it was the most overwhelming experience for me. I had no idea how to properly express how I felt, especially in times of conflict, and it became the most difficult relationship to overcome. 


For years after we broke up, I didn't feel that I had attained any sort of closure, because I didn't feel heard. But I didn't know to speak up and say what I needed to say because I had never done it before. Every major conversation that we had where I had the floor and got to say my piece was nearly scripted. I would sit down with a friend, maybe write a song, and think through a few key things that I needed to say, and how to say them. If it weren't for my critical thinking we would have spent all our time in silence, and even when I did somehow correctly predict how the upcoming conversation would go, I would second guess myself, and wonder if I had chosen the right words. I would often just not say anything at all, or not say what I intended, and I would leave feeling resentful and even more hurt and broken. What a terrible way to live!

The family I can love, because I know who I am

I eventually got closure and stopped avoiding those particular hurts. I forgave and moved on and met the love of my life years later. And it wasn't until I fell in love with my husband, and we began to work at our relationship, that I realized how bad I am at confronting issues head on. Everything was happening at once. I was in the thick of my counselling in one of the most challenging periods of my life so far (and probably to come), and also had to face all of my inadequacies as a woman to my man. I would beat myself up, cry, sit silently, go for a drive, all to prolong facing the issues at hand. And the thing is, they usually weren't huge, make-or-break issues; they were small things that I should have just been able to acknowledge and move forward from, but I had no clue how. I was like baby trying my hardest to roll over for the first time; I would get on my side, thinking I can do it, and fall on my back and give up. 


I don't do that anymore. Perhaps I sometimes go too far the other way and over express myself in times of conflict, especially with people that I know and trust. But often I would rather write a letter than make a phone call, or send an email than ask someone out to coffee if there is something we need to discuss. I am working on it, and have had some very difficult, life changing conversations in a direct and loving manner. But for small things, or things that I don't see as high on the priority list, I don't always face them head on and then, like I did when I was 16 and in love for the first time, I don't feel heard.


I could go into way more detail, but I will save that for another time and end with this. Habits need to be broken. I know that I need to be more consistent in how I deal with people. It's just hard. Most times in my life, when given the option to fight or flee, I run like hell. 


-SP