You're Good and You're Trying

A gentle reminder for you...

Hello my friends!

Well this one is going to be a doozy, please excuse this interruption from your regularly scheduled newsletter (and thanks to all those who submitted ideas!):

Putting my work out in public (newsletter, Instagram, books, drunken displays of karaoke at my local bar, etc.) makes one thing impossible: lying. When Lilies first came out my colleagues asked, “but you didn’t tell the WHOLE truth, right?” a little afraid of what my response might be. I said what I would say to you now, “if I wasn’t going to tell the truth, why write this book? Why do any of it? Who would that serve?”

And so, I can’t tell you a lie of omission—someone broke my heart in an unnecessarily cruel way that felt dehumanizing. As if I had no valuable qualities and deserved no softness nor compassion. I was discarded. Quickly. And it was so sudden, so out of left field, with so little mercy that I entered a true state of shock. Only two weeks ago we were planning a trip to Portugal, only one week ago he was picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder like I was a sack of potatoes as giggled (yes, GIGGLED) uncontrollably, only the night before we had said we loved one another. And now this? Had I ever known him? Was it all a lie? I felt displaced from reality.

The story of the break-up is actually worth telling and I will with time and perspective asap, but I’ll give you one detail to help this make sense. Part of the break up was telling me I did two things wrong—two things he had never told me about up to that point—and that he wouldn’t allow me to try to make right. Now let’s just take his word that these two things were 100% my fault, there weren’t, not even close, even still, holding me to a standard of perfection where my behavior was graded as pass or fail and there are no re-do’s, no amends to be made, no growth to be had, just isn’t right. If someone asks you to be perfect in order to be loved, that person doesn’t understand that love is a verb, not a noun. Love is something you work on, you build, you re-build, and nurture—not something static that is always just the way you like.

So, my consolation prize this week has been to remind myself that I’m good and I’m trying my best. I’m not perfect, I’ve never been perfect, and I’m so done with perfection that the word grosses me out. Perfection is a prison that limits us from our potential because it stops us dead in our tracks where we are to remain, repeating our perfect behavior. Where is the fun, the joy, the growth in that? Right now, I am eyeing the four mugs on my desk with rotting tea bags in them, I am starving because apparently I no longer eat, and I am wearing a seriously snotty sweatshirt. There are a million flaws and fissures in me and I am good and I am trying my best.

I know I am good because I literally come from stardust. No one ever says, “stars suck because they aren’t perfectly bright.” You have never heard someone scream, “I’m not giving stars a second chance!” No, we all generally agree that stars are pretty awesome and deserving of, at least, our decency, certainly our love, and maybe even our awe that they can shine so brightly no matter what.

You might not have had a break-up recently, you might have had something far worse—a death, disease, financial collapse, humiliation you feel you’ll never get through— and yet, no one can ever take away from you the fact that you are good and you are trying your best.

And to those of you who have an inner critic who is right now pipping up and yelling, “but I’m not good! You don’t know me! And how do I know if I’m trying my best?!” Well, first off, you are made of stardust so that’s already a win, second off, I don’t think you would be reading this particular newsletter if you were actively trying to be cruel to people (this is a self-selecting audience), and thirdly, I’m pretty sure you didn’t wake up this morning thinking, “Huh! how can I actively ruin someone’s day?!”

And so, a gentle reminder, you are good and you are trying your best. Even the boy who broke my heart, he is good and he is trying his best.

2 Quotes Getting Me Through the Week:

“Other people’s actions are the result of their own pain and not the result of any intention to hurt you.”

From Thích Nhất Hạnh’s book How to Love.

“In the flush of love’s light / we dare be brave / and suddenly we see / that love costs all we are / and will ever be. / Yet it is only love which sets us free"

From Dr. Maya Angelou’s poem Touched by an Angel.