...A bEaUtiFuL mEsS...

I love art. In fact, I was an Art History major for a period of time in college. This did not make my Dad happy, but I just loved looking at art...for hours...memorizing the names of paintings...staring at the colors and lines...seeing the world through another person's eyes and through different perspectives. I don't have one particular style or period or artist that is my favorite. While there are some artists that do not appeal to me as much as others...I can see the beauty in many different pieces.

Some artists are familiar even to people that have never studied art...their pieces easily recognizable. Picasso is just one of a handful I can think of. While he is not one of my favorite artists, I am truly fascinated by many of his pieces. I look at some of them and I see all the parts of the face and body...jumbled...in the wrong place. I find some odd...confusing to my eyes...but I never see them as ugly. In their own way, they are beautiful. It's almost as if they are so wrong...they are right. I feel similarly about Monet. While I think Monet's paintings are probably more universally appealing, it's always been amazing to me how something that looks so beautiful from afar, can look like such a mess up close...at least to me it does. All the random colors and brush strokes up close create a beautiful picture...if you don't look too closely.

I was laying in bed the other night...it was very late...and dark...I couldn't sleep. I could hear my husband breathing...asleep...and I was feeling a little like a Picasso and even more like a Monet myself. I started to think about all the things I don't like about myself...all my physical imperfections. I was lying there wishing that I didn't just have a good body, but a perfect body...thinking about the days when I had no wrinkles...wondering what it would be like to be perfect...to have a tiny, straight nose...to be beautiful...in a classic, "Barbie" kind of way. I mused at how perfect I sometimes seem from afar...what an illusion my life has become...when really, if you look closely...I'm a mess and about as far from perfect as one could be. When you walk in my house, you see expensive custom curtains with fancy fringe and tassels...lots of decorations...everything looks perfect...but if you look in my drawers or my closets...it's a complete disaster. People that see me when I am out and about, think that I am confident...that nothing bothers me. I laugh when I want to cry. I say "Who cares!" when I DO care. I wear fake nails to cover the ones that I would bite if I didn't. I always have just the right accessories...the right jewelry...belt...shoes so that I am perfectly put together...from afar...but really...I'm sort of a mess when you get closer. I wondered what it would be like to really be as strong as I appear...to be as confident and happy as people think I am.

As I sat down to write about these feelings that I have been struggling with internally...not really sure what direction I was going...it came to me. There is no one, classic kind of beauty...and there is no one kind of perfection. I have spent a lifetime chasing perfection...always feeling like I fall short. I am realizing that I already am what I have been chasing. I may not be flawless. I may not be as confident as I would like...or as organized as I should be...or as happy as I seem all the time...but I AM perfect in my own way. Just because people can see that I have flaws when they look at me up close, doesn't mean I am bad or worth less than other people. Just because my nose is a little crooked, doesn't make me ugly. Just because I'm not as perfect as I look from afar...doesn't make me jumbled and wrong. I am a one of a kind...a priceless work of art in my own way. And even if I am a bit of a mess...I am a beautiful mess...perfect in my own perfections...and that is okay.