Sometimes life is your oyster.
I have never tried a raw oyster. I’m not sure I could make it past the slimy consistency, but I love pearls. They are one of my birth stones, so there’s that.
Other times life can make you its bitch. You know those days, everyone does. The day, week, month, years where it’s just one thing after another, hitting you just as you manage to get back to your feet. In those times it can feel as though every problem in your life is just jumping on top of you, like a gigantic game of dog pile.
I always hated dog pile. The poor victim is hopelessly trapped and unable to breathe while all their “friends” laugh and taunt them. In the end all it does is give the now claustrophobic pile-ee another thing to talk about in therapy sessions, later in life.
Speaking of therapy, it works. Well at least it can help (results may vary). It helped me a lot. Did it fix everything that was wrong with my life? No. It did, however, help me to find the words to express my inner feelings. Now I have lots of words, though most are monosyllabic.
Life is like this article, a rambling and sometimes chaotic mess of shit with pearls hidden inside.
Some people stare at the pile of shit and never see the pearls. I admit it can be difficult to see them sometimes.
I will refrain from going into detail about getting a bucket of water, a good pair of gloves, and a clothespin, because having the perfect life is at times beyond our control.
Like most people, I prefer the beauty and ease that comes from a flawless string of pearls. Those I don’t have to dig for or spend so much time and effort cleaning and stringing them myself.
The problem with that approach is that things are not always so perfect as they seem. Each one of those perfectly round, shiny pearls was built layer by imperfect layer. The flaws are still there just beneath the surface.
What I have learned to see is that beauty can be found in the imperfections, in the differences. Everyone can see the simple beauty of symmetry but not every eye is able to appreciate that which is imperfect. For this reason, we tend to cover up our perceived flaws before facing the world.
What we may not understand is that everyone is doing the same thing. We are all built with layer upon layer of imperfect experiences, expectations, and the consequences of our choices. They form who we are inside. All the anger, pain, and regret may be covered up by a handful of smooth layers on the outside, but we all know that beneath the surface we are not so perfect as we want others to believe.
The sad part of all this is that if we could all be honest we would see that we aren’t so different after all. We would see the beauty that can be found in variation. We are all the same in that we are all pearls and we are all beautiful in our own way.
…but you can’t always see the beauty till you clean us off and string us together, imperfections and all.
~ elr
Image: E.L. Redwine