Dirt

"God made dirt, so dirt don't hurt."

I don't claim a super perfect, super clean life. I've tried to, when Z was small and taking pictures was easier because she wasn't running from me or twirling or talking while I was trying to get my shot. When I could position her where and how I wanted her to be, away from clutter or piles of clothes or whatever.

Back then, I kept my mouth shut as everything was crashing in around me, as day by day life kept getting harder and harder, as my anger and resentment became more and more difficult to conceal. I hid the dirt, I was ashamed of it, like we had somehow earned this twist of fate - the lost jobs, the dying grandfather, the bankruptcy, illness, the marriage crumbling around our feet - as if somehow God himself were punishing us for past transgressions.

I can't do that anymore and I refuse to allow myself to slide back into that. It would not be fair of me to give you the illusion that my dishes are not lying in the sink, that I do not have at least 7 loads of laundry waiting for me at home, that I wake up on time (ever), that my child is always immaculately clean, snot-free or perfectly behaved.

I have a dream world that I could conjure up for you, it would be all lovely and sunshine and rainbows and butterfly-eating unicorns that crap pots of gold, but it would not be reality.

The reality is that I worry a lot (although not nearly as much as I used to), that I have an extremely-active imagination that screams awful things at me with every ring of the phone, flick of the light and jump on the porch, that I can be the meanest and cut the deepest the ones that are closest to me, that I am nowhere near the perfection that I expect of myself (and that's the hardest part).

I am going to be braver in this blog. I am going to show you my dirt, let you see my journey so that your dirt might not hurt you as much as I have let mine hurt me.

Maybe we can all learn something along the way.