Owning Your Sh*t

(originally posted February, 2006)

So often, we as humans can sit back and examine other folks’ lives and cluck our tongues... it’s so easy to see where another has gone wrong, and then have the nerve to identify how to right that wrong. However, for me, on this day, at this moment, it is time to point my razor-sharp observation inward and remove the beam in my own eye before I call attention to the splinter in the eye of another. Based on some of my recent blogs, one might be inclined to wonder what kind of bipolar life I’m living, but that’s not the case at all. I’ll go one better and say that I know I’m not the only person that has these kind of thoughts, but it’s not about anybody else… it’s about me, and it’s just time to own my shit.

I’m tangled in a web of emotions the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Whether or not the final outcome to this complicated matter is to my liking or not, I know I won’t emerge on the other side as exactly the same Tracey I was going in. The situation has become so convoluted that if I dared expose the whole truth, certain members of my inner circle would have me shot without so much as a second thought.

I am wholly IMPERFECT, and I fear I have embraced that which I despise: hypocrisy. I am selfish, self-indulgent, impatient, and more than a little lazy. Other people have this perception of me as smart and strong, but sometimes the choices I make are stupid and weak. I’m not bulletproof. There’s more holes in my shit than Alpine Lace Baby Swiss cheese. Some days it’s all I can do to get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other. I go through periods when I feel like I’m a complete failure at the most important thing I’ve ever been charged with the responsibility of doing. I find myself scared more than I care to admit, and I cry… A LOT.

Having read these sordid confessions, one might wonder how I still manage to see any good in myself at all. I have come to realize that one of the keys to balance is being brutally honest with myself about what I’m feeling and what I’m doing (and my motivations therefor); seeking peace within as opposed to without, and not seeking (or caring about, necessarily) judgment from others.

I’ve also learned to listen to and speak on the situations that others come to me to discuss without judgment, but with compassion and understanding. Strangely enough, I have found a certain humanity in vocalizing my negative character aspects. This writing was cathartic, as was the conversation that gave me the courage to tell the tale. It can only be that I’m happy in spite of everything, because I have remained true to myself, and refuse to abide in misery.

I press onward knowing that at the end of the day, I have to answer only to God and the woman in the mirror, and that if I am blessed to continue this life tomorrow, I’m given another chance to right certain wrongs. I pray not for strength (my pastor says praying for strength is asking for trouble), but for the wisdom to learn and grow through the dark times. I acknowledge that in order to see the good (in all areas of my life, but especially within myself), I have to accept the bad.

What will you do when your chickens come home to roost?