Clarifying Imperfection

I've always wanted this blog to be a place where I can speak entirely candidly, brutally honestly, and completely in the stream of the moment.  And that is what I have done.  But I think I'm starting to wonder if maybe at times I've spoken too plainly, been too blunt, and failed to explain things with enough clarity.

I'm a deeply scarred and broken person.  I don't have it all together (AND THAT'S OK!!!).  That very notion, the first time I heard it, out of the mouth of the amazing and dearly missed Carol Riebock, began me down a course that I remain on today.  This journey has involved switching so many painfully-held notions that made me believe that I had to act a certain way, constantly scrutinize my every thought and action in light of what everyone else thought.  I constantly had to worry, not just about how people viewed me, but often far more painfully, how they viewed my family in light of my actions.  Since I finally embraced the concept that it's ok to not be perfect, to make mistakes, and to not have it all together, I've held onto it with a brutally hard grip, constantly afraid that the moment I turn my attention back towards how I'm viewed by others, I will once again lose control and begin to spiral downward into the dark, into the blackness, into the nothingness and hopelessness that existed for me when I faked everything about myself in order to please those around me.

Will letting go of this fierce grip mean taking a step backward?  Will it mean losing parts of myself?  Will curbing my bluntness, repressing some of my honesty, and worrying about clarifying more fully mean putting a mask back over who I am, who I've become?

I don't know the answers to these questions.  I simply don't.  For more than four years now, I've defined a huge part of myself by the mantra, "It's o.k. to not have it all together."  I've broadcast my imperfections, and been perhaps far too willing to shine an imperfect light on the imperfections of others.  That's never been my intention.  But I don't know how to change back, and perhaps far more importantly, I don't think I want to.  I'm stuck at this impasse where I know that I can't keep hurting others by being overly blunt, too curt, and failing to fully explain myself, but at the same time, I know that I can't go back to living a life as someone other than myself.  I can't pretend to be perfect, and I most definitely don't want anyone else to think that I am.  And, to once again be blunt, I don't really want people to think that my family is perfect either.  But I don't want my vented frustrations about the inner-workings of my family life to cause undue concerns and problems.

All I know how to do at this point is to clarify, at least in person.  I'm not sure how much clarification is owed to this blog.  It was designed as a place where my most brutally honest, imperfect, and flawed thoughts could be processed and shared.  I never made any promises about the utter clarity or perfection of these thoughts.  Quite the opposite in fact.

I don't know what is owed in this forum.  What I do know is that my most recent blog post caused people that I love dearly to question and feel concern for my family.  That wasn't necessarily my intention.  So please, if you have questions, or want me to explain something, whether about this most recent post, one further in the past, or any of my future musings, please never hesitate to ask, whether in a comment in this forum or through FB,, email or my cell.

I'm not perfect.  I've never claimed to be.  Sometimes I get into a place where the only non-self-destructive method I know how to vent my frustrations is to put my faltering, imperfect, and incomplete thoughts on this blog.  But please never take my posts as a picture-perfect representation of my life, or even of my thoughts on my life, my family, or anything else.  This is a stream of conscious production, and when I'm in a place where I am frustrated, upset, and, frankly, not very stable, this forum may in fact reflect a quite distorted image of the truth.

I won't apologize for posting this inarticulate and perhaps innaccurate representation, because this was never supposed to be a novel or a news report.  Instead I will simply ask you to inquire for more clarification, and, above all, to take what I say, especially if it sounds frustrated, upset, and even angry, with a significant grain of salt.

I'm not perfect.  I will never claim to be.  So all I can do is attempt to clarify my imperfection.