Accepting things as they are

I feel awesome today. Not in an exciting way, but just a very even-keeled way. I feel close to center. Hopefully one day I’ll know what it’s like to feel completely centered, but today I think I feel closer to whatever centered actually is than I have in a very, very long time.

I’ve been living an idealized version of life.

But today I’m sitting on the step of my patio watching several monarch butterflies dance around the passion fruit vine in the backyard. The little bit of clutter on the patio isn’t bothering me. The little bit of clutter in the kitchen isn’t bothering me, either. I realized it never bothered me, just the idea of clutter bothered me.

I realized I was never allowed to make mistakes. I didn’t know what the difference between a mistake and failure. I just felt like everything equaled failure. I blame my mother for this. She instilled such a strange, skewed version of reality perception in me and it’s taken me a lot of time and work to undo that. To her, everything was a catastrophe. To her, every misstep I ever made as a child was met with dramatic tears and her famous phrase, “I can’t believe you would do that!” Even kind things. Even thoughtful things.

She pounded so much shame and so much guilt into every cell of my body, into my very existence as a human that it paralyzed me.

Today I feel less shame and less guilt. I realized that shame is not my own. I don’t actually feel shame for having some cans of soda on my patio. It’s just the idea that it should be shameful.

Everything I ever did, unless it was perfectly executed servitude to her, was wrong. Not just wrong, but very, very wrong.

My body is finally starting to learn that she is wrong. She can’t hurt me anymore.

Im learning to accept things the actual way they are, not painting them what they should or shouldn’t be or wondering if it’s wrong somehow. I know that I am a good wife and a good mother and a good person. I also know I am not perfect and I have many many flaws that I can and will continue to work on, while being compassionate to myself when I make a mistake or need extra help.

It’s okay. I’m okay. We’re going to be okay. Everything is okay.