Present Over Perfect

So words that would hurt you when you’re stone-sober just
don’t bother you after a glass or two of wine, or after you’ve
lost three more pounds, or as long as chocolate or pizza can
keep you company, keeping you safe and distant. But you
take away those things and all of a sudden, you find many
of your relationships very different than you originally
believed. You feel everything. Everything.
It’s like wearing glasses for the first time—I was six
when I got my first tiny pair, and I remember all of a sudden
seeing individual blades of grass where previously there was
only a bland, cohesive expanse of green.
That’s how it is when you leave these things behind—
busyness, exhaustion, codependence, compulsive anything
—you can see the cracks and brokennesses in your
relationships for what they really are, and you realize that
you can’t move forward the way you have been, that you
have to either fix the cracks or let the connection break—
those are the only two honest ways.
And so I’ve been busy doing both—repairing cracks in
some, and letting others shatter, which they should have
done a long time ago, had I not been holding the scraps
together.
I’m facing myself for the first time in a long time, and
I’m beginning to see myself for what I am: right and wrong,
strong and fragile. All the things, all in one.