Messy

Life is messy.

Sometimes I think we need to be handed this on a card at birth.  Life is messy.  Don't expect tidy endings and complete stories.

People leave you and you depart from places and there is sorrow and grief and joy.  You can shut yourself down or you can feel it.  For those of us who feel it, we feel completely. There are days I wake and I am fine and there are days I wake and I am not fine.

I am currently awash in one of those inexplicable hiccups of grief. There is nothing for it.  I breathe and I work and I keep moving forward.

Life is messy.

I am a tidy person.  As a little girl I loved putting my toys away.  I loved a clean room.  I had the good fortune to share a room with a sister who taught me that life is messy.  A clean room is nothing without the contrast of the mess.  Mark, too, believed that a thing belonged where it landed, not in any specific place.  So while my nature longs for tidy, I acknowledge that I am not going to get it.  I respect the mess.  I respect the contrast.

We will feel the mess sometimes more than we want to.  I want to wake up tomorrow with joy on my hands and in my heart.  I want to look at my little girl's room and be okay with the explosion she keeps in there.   I want it all to be okay.   I also want my messes to respect my desire for tidy every now and then.