The Constant Imbalance.

I’m good at making messes.  Not actual, literal messes, though I am good with those too.  I mean the life messes.  I don’t know how they happen.  I don’t think I’m an irresponsible person.  But for some reason, I often find myself in the throws of a mess.

I can’t be sure if it’s me, exactly, or if life just picks us for the messes because we can handle them.  I know people often say that we are only given the load we can bear.  But I can’t help but wonder why our load seems heavier than most.

And for a long time, I let myself wallow in that fact.  When something happens enough times, you start to let it define you.  You stop trying to be anything else because why bother, right?  It’s exhausting and deflating.

I think I’ve just come to the point where I’ve accepted our mess for what it is.  And all we can really do is work our asses off and be nice to people.  Nothing good ever comes for free.  And it definitely doesn’t ever come easy.

I’ve always been a fighter.  I don’t let life happen to me.  I push back.  I try to redefine things.  Fix things.  But the one real truth is, I’ve never had to do it alone.

I may not have some glittery career.  I may not own a house or take fancy vacations every year.  But when everything gets stripped away, what really matters in the end is who is standing next to you.

As a person who has suffered through a long-term lopsided friendship, it’s startling to me when friends step in and save the day, the week, the month, the year.  Because I’m not used to it.  I’m not used to people being the same kind of friend to me as I would be to them.  I accepted it as fact, the constant imbalance.

Yesterday was a mess.  And in the end, it was a friend who jumped in without even being asked and cleaned up what I couldn’t.

I know one thing for sure.  I’ll take the mess any day as long as I’m standing in it with these people.