I finally have the repair man here to do repairs on my old property that I have been putting off for some time. I know that if I made a list of so called ‘character defects’ one of mine may be procrastination or even at times passive aggression. I know at times I vacillate or put things off out of fear. I am feeling some shame today as I have these old wooden varnished kitchen bench tops that have been deteriorating over time. I had someone due to do the repairs on it last year before I started sending money to Scott and that ended up blowing out. There was no real need to hold off on the repairs, since I did have the money, anyway the guy has just shown me that now my kitchen bench tops are going to have big round brown circles in the striated lined surface where water and soap have leaked in and damaged the surface of the wood. If I had got onto the problem sooner my bench tops would have remained perfect, now they are going to be ‘flawed” with these circular ‘dots’ in them. I left the kitchen a moment ago retreating to my lounge room where I am writing this and cried. It may seem a silly thing to cry about but inside my head my inner critic was lambasting me for my ‘procrastination’ and not getting on top of things sooner. I can always seem to come up with a million excuses of why I did not get onto things quicker. But sometimes I would just rather float around lost in a kind of reverie and I know it is a highly impractical trait.
I was so ashamed after this I actually unpublished a poem I just wrote on feeling lost and trying to conform to a world I so often feel as though I don’t fit into. I am also struggling with how much more help I keep giving to this dream of Scott and I finally being together, part of me wants to hold onto the rest of my money and just have the certainty of living alone, being responsible for my own life, no longer responsible for stepping in to help those who cannot help themselves because they have got their own lives into a bit of a ‘pickle’. But the truth is that at times myself I just long for some kind of ‘rescue’ from someone bigger and stronger. I long for someone just to lean upon for a while and for that true intimacy and unconditional love that he has shown me through out the past ten months or more. I feel very sad and weak and small even writing and admitting this but maybe that’s a good thing.
Anyway the truth is I have taken action now to get my bench sanded back and revarnished. The bench will continue to have these ‘flaws’ as reminders to me. And in the grand scheme of things what does it really matter. I was raised in such a way that appearances were often everything.. they were more important than how you really felt deep down inside and in my family it was always important to keep soldiering on and pretending no matter how hard it seemed. Often there was a feeling of no one to turn to. And so over time I tried to draw back from that quest to have everything so ‘perfect’ and allow some of the ‘mess’ to show up from within. Maybe even admitting all of this is allowing some of my all too human vulnerability to show.
Scott sent me a text this morning telling me that I may not be the most perfect girl in the world but never the less I am the greatest (to him at least 😦 ) the one who cannot be replaced. And I have to cut myself some slack on this bench. Slowly I am learning to front up at times and grasp the nettle to deal with the practicalities and breakdowns and general maintenance life demands of me, but I have also over past years been able to float and deepen into my soul life. I have been able to grieve and at times it has been hard to function in life, so what the hell I am human and no I am very far from perfect. It also appears to me that life goes so much easier for me when I don’t demand that perfection of life or others either, for are we not all flawed in some ways, do we not all break down or suffer ‘seepages’ at times, isn’t that all part of the mysterious mixed up tapestry we call life?
And on reflection perhaps all of this life is about an oscillation of opposites, weak and strong, happy and sad, powerful and vulnerable. And perhaps there is a time for both/and rather than just a black/white either or bullet proof certainty. For today I will just go with the flow while taking action when I can. I will try to ride the opposites. I had an insight after first publishing this post just a short while ago and re reading it that in some way I equate being perfect or appearing perfect with winning or holding onto love. How sad!! But maybe this shows something about my conditioning?? Maybe it also shows why for so many years I hid so much and suffered from so much fear. Its just a powerful realisation I seem to be having today.
Emerging From The Dark Night 