A Little Reality Check, Because Life Really Can Be A Mess

Life can be a mess sometimes.

Life can be confusing, scary, misleading, unexpected, and just plain bat-shit crazy.

We are all so unique, our experiences and responses, our lessons and opinions, our morals and values; our souls are all so beautifully different.

Whether it appears so or not, we are all walking our own special little walk, down our own road. No one else will ever walk exactly where and how you are walking right now. Ever.

We can only observe what our fellow humans are going through. We can listen, if the option is available, but mostly we can only see. 

But oh how little we really do see. 

Even the people closest to you, how little they can see by merely looking.

Most times, people put on masks to hide what they are really struggling with. To be exposed to the world would only make things that much harder. Sure, you may look better on the outside, but that could be a false indicator of the reality occurring below the surface.

We want to be strong.

We want to make others proud.

We don’t want to bring others down.

We don’t want to reveal our brokenness to the world.

Sometimes we cant even look inside ourselves, much less allow anyone else to.

It’s too painful. It’s too complex. It’s too personal. It’s too sacred to the shaping of our souls. 

It’s too vulnerable, fragile, precious, and beautiful even in its most repulsive ugliness.

When there is so much going on below the surface, in our minds, our hearts, our emotions, all of our body’s energy is going into what cannot be seen. What we can’t see, what no one can see. 

It’s pretty difficult to even grasp, much less explain, all that we are experiencing that cant be see.

How can you say ‘I’m sick’ without having a temperature, without being in a hospital bed? 

How can you say, seven months later, ‘I’m still sick’ when you look fine, you’ve made visible progress, but inside you know things are still majorly healing?

How can you rip open your chest, show all the damage your heart has undergone, point and say ‘Look! See! Understand!’?

Even if you could, there’s no guarantee understanding would follow anyways.

Life is a mess.

We are all battling our own messes.

We are all struggling and fighting, and it looks different for everyone.

Just because things look fine on the surface that does not mean a battle isn’t still raging below.

Struggling with the intangible, the unseen, the invisible, the personal emotional experiences of our souls, has no time limit. 

There is no formula, there is no set of rules or steps that will guarantee a healing time you can mark on your calendar. There is no prescribed amount of strength, patience, healing, or searching that will automatically make you better.

It’s a process.

It’s a journey,

And it’s yours.   

So be patient with your fellow man and woman. Swallow another dose of compassion, and take a few more moments of thought before you assume ‘It can’t be that hard’….because it really just might be.

Think about that person’s heart, because more than likely it is bleeding. More than likely it is injured. More than likely it is struggling to hold on to hope, it is simply trying to take life one moment at a time. 

We don’t know the ghosts that haunt even our loved ones.

We don’t know the whispers of pain and betrayal that still sneak up on them.

We cannot peer deep inside them in order to understand them. No. No, we cant.

If you have a loved one who you know, or think, might be struggling just try to show them that you are there – even if you don’t understand what they might be going through, and despite what you might be seeing from them, don’t forget there is always more than meets the eye.

I know I probably sound like a broken record, I know all of this sounds cliché, but there is a reason these things have been said countless times.

LOVE EACH OTHER.

Honestly, that’s all that matters.

Just return to love. At the end of the day, just remember to love.

Be gentle, be kind, be warm, be helpful, be there, and love.

LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.

ALWAYS.

And of course….

Keep on truckin’

C.M.S