messy

Life is filled with messy people. Really. When my daughter was a teenager, it became abundantly clear that I had raised a slob. I never saw the floor of her room for six years. I cleaned it in the beginning, but that came to a screeching halt eventually. I finally just shut the door because I couldn’t handle looking at it. Sometimes it is better to forgo the battles to win the war. And winning a war can take a long time. But today she keeps her house neat as a pin!

But there is more to the battle between the “messy” people and the “tidy” people. And it actuality, it has little to do with whether or not you can see their floor. Yes, there are those of us who like things neat and organized, and there are others who could care less. Two of the most special people in my life were total and complete slobs. They were a mess . . . on the outside. On the inside, they were the most sincere, loving people I have ever known. Unfortunately, many people never got beyond the mess.

I suspect we all see ourselves as just a little bit perfect. But, when push comes to shove, aren’t we all pretty messy? When someone just “pops” in for a visit, don’t we all rush to clean the counters, pick things up, shove stuff behind or under the furniture. We want others to think we are always neat and tidy. And part of our messiness is that we lie by trying to deceive other people.

Which leads me to wonder about all of us so called “tidy” people. Are we, in fact, just messy people in disguise? More than likely. In my entire life, I don’t think I have ever met anyone who had their life entirely “together” all of the time. Frankly, I don’t think it is possible. And it isn’t possible because we never know what life will hand us. Will it be money, joy, friends, a home or a job or will it be illness, death, divorce, loss or pain? Some we can choose, others we can not. But we can chose how we will react to any given situation. Is it truly possible to take lemons and make lemonade?

As a child I remember a horrendous hail storm that literally stripped trees to the trunk and killed livestock. But what also lives in my memory was our neighbor’s reaction to it. They were dirt poor, hard scrabble farmers that literally lived in a shack by the river. They desperately needed everything that they had just lost. Unable to control the situation, they gathered hailstones and made ice cream. It is a memory that will never leave me. I can not control every situation but I can control how I react to it. Am I willing to make ice cream?

Life is messy. People are messy. Situations are messy. What do we do? Live with it? Change it? Fix other people so their mess looks like our mess? Or perhaps we need to be a little less judgmental of other people’s messes and check out our own. Until we have literally “walked a mile in their shoes”, we can afford to be a little bit lenient.

Nobody is perfect. Nobody is “tidy” all the time. Truth be known, we are all a mess pretty much all of the time. Just check your thoughts . . . it can be pretty scary in your head, confronting the things that float through your mind. You may never say it, but it is there. I am not judging you, I am commiserating with you. I will never truly fit in a “tidy” world because my messes run deep. I can sweep them under the bed and you will never know about the mess, but it still exists. I have dust bunnies hidden under there that could leap tall buildings in a single bound.

I don’t have a solution for our messes. We can help people that need help. Or we can watch them flounder. We can judge less and care more. Nobody likes to clean up someone else’s trash, but are we willing to forgo a few battles to win the war?

Just writin' on the River Road