Shit and Sugar

This past year has been difficult. It feels ungrateful to say that out loud because there has been so much goodness. Always goodness. However, between the special moments shared with friends and family, and ordinary magic that I enjoy collecting with my camera, and the trips that I have been so fortunate enough to take .... there has been a lot of goop and blah. More than just goop and blah. I mean really stressful and life altering shit.

Although I can't go too much into detail about our experiences because they are not my stories alone to tell, let me just say that we've found ourselves in situations lately that have been quite extraordinary.

We've seen the back of a police car, the inside of a mental health hospital, and the ICU. Doctors and difficult decisions. Handcuffs. We have said goodbye to friends who have died. We have said goodbye to thousands of dollars. There have been scary moments where life changed as we knew it. Moments you would not believe. There have been fights and fuck yous. Pounds gained. Wrinkles earned. There have been inappropriate blood alcohol levels. Depression, mono and medication. Fear. Helplessness. Loss of control.

I think it's important that you know this. Because Facebook does a magnificent job of helping me share the wonder and beauty of every day and that is how I choose to use social media... but you would be foolish to discount the reality of the ugly bits. The shit that goes down. On the flip side, it's also important to recognize that even through the worst, there is always beauty. Goodness. The sugar of our lives.

One thing I noticed about myself during the worst of it all, was my need to want to offer up an explanation to people. In every unfortunate incident, I wanted to say......

This is not who we are.

I know this is happening. However, this is not our life. This is just some sort of crazy temporary malfunction. I want to explain. We are good people. Responsible. This is not normal for us. We have a nice life.

Yes, as much as I have always considered myself to be non judgmental, clearly I have judgment. My jugement sit on a purely subconscious level, yet there it is. It seems that I have a few boxes in my head where I categorize people and their circumstances and their actions. I put people who find themselves in "those" situations over there, away from me. That couldn't happen to me because I have always been so intentional about how it all would go down... this life of mine... of ours. We are good people. Responsible. How we are here right now, I DO NOT KNOW. I promise, we do the right things.

When we judge others, we have to remember we are more harshly judging ourselves.

At a certain point I had to just say... yep. It turns out we are those people. .. those people are us. This is our life. Unexpected predicaments that even the best laid plans could not have prevented. This is us guys. Messy and filled with good intentions, bad choices, honorable decisions, problems and possibilities. Shit and sugar. We are you. You are us. She is me. They are them. We are all in this one box together. Humanity.

"Sometimes you just need to talk about something, not to get sympathy or help, but just to kill its power by allowing the truth of things to hit the air." ~Karen Salmansohn