Epiphany

Today, like any other day, I woke up, disappointed in myself and you.

Today though is different. Something happened through the fog of usualness. I didn't do it. I didn't cause it. It just happened.

Suddenly, in my morning, like a beam of light infusing into a dully lit room, I had an epiphany and  I decided to accept you exactly as you are!

You had already toppled off the pedestal I had so ceremonously enthroned you upon. But I kept pulling you back up on it again.

This morning I saw you on the floor, under the pedestal, not very dignified and full of your failure. Angrily and resolutely, I started to grab your arm to position you for the uplift. "Get back up there, damn it!"

But something else happened instead. I saw a vision of myself as a frozen motion in time and space. If I couldn't do it right, I couldn't do it at all. I needed eveything to be "right".

I saw someone creating art, they were splotched with paint, the canvas was torn at the edge, their studio was a disaster. What a mess! Hadn't eaten or changed clothes for three days. They had no plan, no outline, they improvised as they went along. The art they were creating was beautiful though.

I needed you to be right "for me". I needed you to be my "ideal". That's why I kept sticking you back up on that pedestal. And that's why you kept falling off. You could never be another person's ideal. Neither could I. We are only ourselves. We are who we are and nothing else.

I needed me to be "right" for you too. I needed to be an "ideal" for myself to fit well with you. I could never make myself "right" enough for you. In my mind, you would always be searching for that "ideal" of yours and never find it in me because I wasn't it.

I was frozen in ice, ever separated from real experience. I couldn't create my art in you or let you create yours in me for fear of that moment in time where I wouldn't be in control and really surrender to you and at that moment you would finally find your true ideal and leave.

Then the lie I had created long ago to survive, the one that told me the reason you or anyone else would never accept me is because you were more important, would reveal to me that it was always my own perception of myself that kept driving you away. I was continually describing myself to you as not what you wanted so you only agreed with me and kept looking for your ideal.

Anyway, I don't care anymore. It doesn't matter. Letting you be who you are, imperfections, mistakes and failures and all that goes with it is making me feel free. I can accept myself that way too. And let you accept me that way.

We're just a couple of works in progress and are pretty messy right now. What else do we need? Do we need to spruce up the room or stash the trash? probably not. 

***Suddenly I see. I feel like I just woke up from a dream. Truman has just discovered the bubble he is living in. It's not his world at all and most of all, it is not real! He can do anything he wants now! All the tension is gone.

Wow! he has chosen to leave it and strike out on his own. The Truman Show is over. The whole world aplauds and cheers, even with tears, knowing they will not be able to watch the show anymore and they will miss him.