You know those days when you have to be out the door at a certain time in the morning and you washed and dried the laundry the night before, but you were working on that thing that had to be done for the next morning and the laundry was left in a pile on your couch? That morning when the preschooler’s pants are scratchy, and he can’t find socks while you are trying to get breakfast cleaned up, but you’re running out of time, and you can’t be late because the rest of the entire day has been jam-packed in perfectly harmonious detail?
Well, today was one of those days. And after dropping off the pre-schooler, and doing the important thing I couldn’t be late for, I was supposed to meet my precious friend for a picnic at the playground, and we weren’t supposed to be in my house.
We weren’t supposed to be in my house with the laundry in the living room and the jelly solidified and sticky on the counter. We weren’t supposed to be in my house with the games my children were inventing all over the floor of the front room and the library books scattered all over the table and the chair.
But, you guys. I live in Colorado, and the wind was blowing trampolines across highways that day. And my house was only a mile away. So the picnic on the playground turned into lunch at my house.
I always get embarrassed to invite people into my messy home where we live like this. But my dear friend who came to my house that day has literally seen me completely naked… at 42 weeks pregnant. That’s right. She helped me bring my youngest son into the world because nothing was working, and I didn’t trust my doctor, and my husband doesn’t have lady parts, and I trusted her to tell me what to do. So she showed up and told me to open my vagina like a flower. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know how to open a flower like a flower, so opening my vagina gently like a flower was just not in the cards that day. So she told my lady doctor to break my water and give me an epidural.
My friend is very smart, because my sweet baby was born about 45 minutes later.
But I digress. On THIS day, this windy day, my friend walked in with her 5 year-old twin girls one minute after I arrived from that thing I had to do. And her girls stood wide-eyed, looking around at the piles of books and the games and toys. They saw the chalkboard they could reach in the front room, and one of the girls smiled the best kind of knowing smile and said, “Oh. You live in a fun kind of house!”
It was clear to her that my house said, “You can touch things. You can play with things. You can read books and cuddle in that chair. You can be comfortable here. You are welcome to be yourself here, child.”
And that’s just what I wanted it to say! But my perfectionist-people-pleaser tendencies thought that my house could only tell people they were welcome here when the counters were clean, the laundry was put away, and the books and toys were shelved and organized. To a 5 year-old, though, a mess means FUN!
And that’s how God sends us into the world. He sends us into the world stark nekkid and covered in goo. We are messes when we’re born. We flail around for years trying to obey our parents, only to decide as teens that those parents don’t know anything. Only to have children of our own and realize that they might’ve been right about an awful lot. We are disastrous blobs of epic failure, who don’t understand the perspective of a 5 year-old who says something along the lines of, “Look at all of these things I get to try!”
If there’s one thing I’m learning as I get older, it’s that vulnerable and exposed is kind of my jam. Vulnerable and exposed is the way to connection and belonging, at least according to Brene Brown… and that girl knows some things. You guys, people who embrace their mess are FUN. People who embrace their messes live in a fun kind of world where failure is just a step towards their dreams. People who are openly messy are brave and inspiring… and yes… fun.
Friends, I might fit in better if I cover up all of the vulnerable places other people could attack, but fitting in and being truly accepted are two very different things. And if given the choice (we are) I choose being truly accepted over fitting-in every time.
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