So Not Perfect

Anyone who has ever read my blog knows, without a doubt, that I am not perfect. I make mistakes all the time. I have made some huge ass mistakes that have hurt folks and I make smaller mistakes on daily basis. I do not claim perfection. I reject perfection. If I am aware of anything it is that I am terribly and tragically flawed.

Lately, several times in the last few days, folks have said to me in real exasperation that I need to stop being perfect. Let me clarify the undertone...both times this was said as if the folks involved had something on me or knew something about my history and because I said please, thank you, and asked permission before using the bathroom or taking a stick of gum, I was somehow putting on a mask to hide my hideously flawed nature.

Nope. I am flawed. I know it. I make mistakes. I know it. And when I have made a mistake, or hurt someone, or broken something...I try to make it better when I can. But sometimes I am petty, and sometimes I am scared, and sometimes I am angry, and sometimes I am not the always happy angel that folks want me to be.

Here's the trick...I gave up on perfection a long time ago...but lots of folks in the world only see me through a certain lens or a snapshot of time or in a certain circumstance or they know about me through my writing or from hearing me perform and so, in the end, get only a portion of my story and fill in the rest of the blanks themselves. And what happens is that I am either vilified or sanctified but either way...if I am your villain and yet do not ooze out evil or your saint and fuck up...what happens is that I no longer get to be human because someone else's world they built up took a hit.

Here's the deal...I wanna be human. I don't want to be a super hero. I don't want to be a savior. I don't want to be brave all the time. I don't want to keep making the same old mistakes. What I want to do is get to be a sometimes gifted, sometimes brilliant, sometimes wonderful, sometimes loving person that strives towards being those things more often than not. And I want to walk in the world alongside other humans that hurt and laugh and fuck and cry and break things and put them back together again. If I piss you off or make you angry or make you happy or make you giggle...I want to know about all those things...so I can address the things that need address and keep doing the things that bring folks in my life joy and peace. I am not superhuman, so reading minds doesn't work, I am not a magical elf from Happy Land, so I can not cast a spell and make all the bad things disappear from the world...but I do believe that by investing in each other's stories...beyond the narrow view that we might see...we will figure out how to see the humanity in so many many more people and in ourselves.

I am not perfect.

Please and thank you.