Bittersweet Perfection

I am feeling the depth of life today. No more silly talk of toilets and such. I can’t even write about it. How to find a positive spin on sad topics. To talk about life’s sad turns without being totally depressing. Is that the art of being a good writer? A good human? A good sister/daughter? A good blogger? Must I always find the positive spin before I talk about the sad parts of life with someone? What if I don’t know how to feel OK about it myself? I have such a critical voice in my head. I want everything to come out sounding perfectly planned. It is. But it may not be perfect. But what the hell is perfect really? Grrrr. I hate clichés. The questions that are asked so often. The phrases I write out of habit. What is perfect? How many times has that question been asked? Stupid cliché. I guess the problem is that the question has never really been answered. I have a theory about perfection but it doesn’t prove itself to me in real time and this is the perpetual problem. I believe that perfection is everything that is. That it exists and does not exist at all, both at the same time. Every word, thought and deed we all do is perfect, almost by default I guess. Perfection plays itself out again and again in life cycles. It is perfect that just as winter starts to drive all of us batty, the tulips start to sprout, bloom, then die. It is perfect that people meet and fall in love and break up. It is perfect that I am my own best/worst critic. But how does that account for the sad, seemingly imperfect parts of life? Can I say that aging is perfect? I am watching four people die these past two weeks. Slow, painful, laboring at life, bruised bodies from strokes and blood clots, aged hands, blue veins, short of breath. Where last week they were coherent, now they are hallucinating and speaking word salad. Is that perfect? Is that by default? I could put an up spin on this. But I’m not going to. I don’t want to fool anyone. That’s the problem with perfection. It’s not always beautiful at face value. It’s not always graceful. It’s not what we fight for. It just is.

I will never understand how this perfect life plays out. I fight against the urge to want to. Maybe that’s where I go wrong. I should be OK with wanting to understand. But I know it’s not possible. Mostly, I should know it is not my place to judge. Good or bad, perfect or not, life happens everyday. Perhaps the perfect part is change. I can always change my mind tomorrow and take this post off the internet. So, I guess this is leading to the positive spin part of my message. I want to fight that. The question that begs an answer goes unanswered in its own perfect way leaving me to feel the weight of life and all of its sweet and sad parts.