Beloved Flaws

In the past few months it would be fair to say that I haven’t had the heart to write here.  Events both personal, political, and public have had me hunkered down with no desire to show my face.  I’ve wanted to express, yes, but I haven’t had the courage or the energy.  Just reading the newspaper feels like too much some days--reading the monologue of others’ tragedies, then going to the comments for the dialogue, the daily debate about who deserved what.

I haven’t had the heart.  More accurately, I haven’t had the brain.  Certainly my seizures are doing their part to make stress even more stressful (I’ve had an uptick thanks to some physical injuries and life changes).  I’m trying to find a place of peace with that.  I’m trying to love my flaws, even the most deeply flawed part of me, my brain--the misfiring control center that shuts down this machine from time to time.  The neurons that plunge me from consciousness to un, that plummet me from mania to depression, that play the same thoughts over and over again like music from a deranged ice cream truck.  How can I love this thing?

But how can I love another if I can’t love my most flawed parts?  How can I keep myself from picking away at the ones I value when I’m forever digging at my own sores and wounds?  

So I’m going to do it.  I’m going to love the parts of me that I have hated, that I’ve thought were unworthy, that I’ve been told were inferior or ugly or wrong.  I can’t sit around and hope that someone else will love me and make me feel good.  It’s my responsibility.  It’s my job.  No one else is going to do it, so I will do it.