I want to write about the computer virus I just went through, visiting Valentine Mountain with Amicus, buying a new computer, and all the leaps and bounds of progress he and I are experiencing, and I will write all that down, but right now, I feel like talking about something else because it’s on my mind and whether it comes out clearly or not maybe doesn’t matter.
I am an imperfect dog owner and I have an imperfect dog. That may seem like an obvious statement and perhaps everyone out there but me just automatically accepts that about others and about themselves, but I find it quite a leap. Of course, it’s not all about dogs and owning them, but really more deeply about just accepting my imperfection in everything.
I am realizing that no matter how good I may be at something which in some cases is stellar and in others not so much, but it doesn’t matter, I may, in fact, be an expert in some things, but no matter what it is, I will NEVER be perfect at it. It’s impossible. I’ve never really gone that far; maybe only so far as to accept, yes, we shouldn’t really strive too much to be perfect, thinking because it’s too difficult a journey and usually we’re not up to it, but I now realize that it’s not too difficult a journey, it’s an impossible journey and a colossal waste of time, energy and spirit.
It’s a laudable thing to improve and to grow, but unless I allow that large open room of imperfection to sit comfortably within me, to furnish that room with pictures of all my loved ones and to know that it is a very human room in which I will spend a large portion of my life, I will forever be creating distance between myself and others by actually living with some irretrievable fictional hope of what something/someone should be, should look like, a picture that will never ever realize itself anywhere but in my worried insane high-standard of it’s just not good enough.
Well, this is again something that Amicus is teaching me every day. He teaches it by being himself 100 percent 24/7 unflinchingly imperfect and thereby downright loveable. He needs to work on things and so do I. He’s scared of people and I have a lot of fear, as well. Sometimes he is not very clear and because of confusion something goes wrong; well, I’m not very clear sometimes, either, and people can’t read my mind. When I am calm, clear, and confident, Ami does exactly what he should do all the time. When Ami is clear, I know I better get him outside real quick or buy more carpet product, that sort of thing.
I don’t know if I’m explaining this coherently or not, but somehow accepting this concept of imperfection feels so good and so overdue. Like, for example, since I got Ami, the actual room I live in is messy and crazy whereas before everything had a specific place and there was no room for anything out of place. Now, I’m like all those people in movies I’ve always admired. Whenever I see a house or an apartment in a movie, I like to check out the furnishing, decoration, lived-in-ness, and I have often thought, boy, those movie sets look more lived in than my real place. I wish I could be like that.
Well, now I have one of those messy comfortable imperfect places where a body can come and go and really live, that wonderful crazy comfortable room of imperfection that Amicus and I now live in, the house that Amicus built.
It’s real estate I highly recommend.
Andrea, what an exceptional, amazing piece of writing. Rich, full, moved me to tears. Asolutely, absolutely exceptional. I am overwhelmed, so proud of you, so envious at the talent you have. You are amazing. This is one of the best pieces of writing I have ever read….and I have read a hell of a lot. Well done, GF, well done!!!!!