When we are too (something), we might find ourselves living in mess. (We, as in, all of us, and we, as in, my little family.) We hunker down in our messes. We need to. We keep people out, or we scurry and shove the mess into one little room and wedge the door shut against its desire to burst, and we smile and say, “Uh, don’t open that door. Scary room, you know?” We all know. We all fight the mess. Some of us win. Some of us lose.
When we are the most messy, we are the most (fill in the blank).
Underwater?
Miserable?
Hopeless?
Distracted?
Carefree?
Drunk?
Lost?
Invite people in. Bring people in. Let them in. When we bring people into our mess, they help us stir it. They stir it in useful ways. They stir it in useless ways. They bring love, or judgments, or self interest, or grace and gentleness. They bring whatever it is they bring. They sit with us, and then we stir it together. We look at what they might see, with the tiniest shift out of our own eyes, and we see it anew, for better or worse.
Then, they leave. We feel better, or more agitated, or anything in between, because not only the mess, but we, too, are stirred. Sometimes, in the middle of all that bigger, more aerated mess, we start to find things.
Hunker down, but put up an open sign once in a while, too. And leave out your mess.
