*****CAUTION***** This is REAL!!!!

Several weeks ago I stumbled onto this blog. It is called single Dad Laughing. The post I read was about the disease we call perfection. In his blog he says:

I wonder. Am I the only one aware that there is an infectious mental disease laying siege on us right now? There is a serious pandemic of "Perfection" spreading, and it needs to stop. Hear me out because this is something for which I am passionately and constantly hurting. It's a sickness that I've been trying to put into words for years without much success. It's a sickness that I have personally struggled with. It's a sickness that at times has left me hiding in dark corners and hating myself.

As I continued to read I was touched and saddened by this epidemic that I know has had its clutches in me. This unattainable goal of perfection that always seemed just out of my reach. Before you continue on I want you to go to this link and read, "The Disease Called Perfection" and "The CURE for perfection."

http://www.danoah.com

So now comes the really real part, the hard part. It is our fear of rejection that keeps us from truly being ourselves and I have been an accomplice in this. So in answer to Single Dad Laughing here are my struggles, my fears, my heart laid bare.

"The road is anything but simple. It is twisted like a riddle. I've seen high and I've seen low." My life has taken me through many changes and struggles. Some profound and big others trivial to most but big to me. I have known loss. The loss of a child. A child that grew right under my heart and left me all too quickly. My angel, Ella, left a hole in my heart that I am not sure will ever fully heal. I now know that time does not heal all wounds sometimes you just learn to live with the scars. However this great loss was not to be my greatest struggle but my preparation for something else. My greatest struggle was to come with failure. Failure of a marriage. I was married for 13 years to an emotionally abusive man. The shocker of this was that even as the marriage was crumbling I still loved him. I still tried to make it work, tried to "manage" my marriage. In the end he left not because he was miserable but because he found someone else to love. The betrayal was worse than the failure. That he left me for another woman all the while telling me that I was fat, ugly and worthless was even harder to swallow. For 13 years I listened to how I would never be able to accomplish things. I would never be good enough for this or that.....and I believed it! I not only believed those things I actually started to feel them about myself. As I started to believe these awful things I lost myself and became something I didn't even recognize. When the divorce finally came I was battered, broken and hanging on by a thread. As I dealt with all of these things I had 3 amazing kids to think of. I did not have time to wallow. So, ever so slowly I started to tackle this new life. As I did this I began to realize that I really could do things and I really was strong. After a few months I realized I was happy!!!!! HAPPY, how had this happened? I was happier on my own raising 3 kids and doing it all myself than I had been in years. It was at that moment that I realized I had been pretending for far too long.

Guess what I am a MESS and it feels great!!!! I curse, I occasionally yell at my kids and my house seldom looks like a Better Homes and Gardens home. After losing 30 pounds I still wish I was 20 pounds thinner. I don't have the body I used to nor do I have that carefree face without wrinkles. My son can recite more commercials and cartoon characters than I care to admit. My girls know the words to most Lady Gaga songs. This is my life. It is not perfect but it is mine. And I intend to be real, really me with all my imperfections. It is amazing how liberating it is. It freaks a lot of people out, my complete abandonment of propriety. However I had a friend tell me today that I made her happy. She said she was telling all her teammates how awesome I was. I'll admit it when she said this I had to double check that she was talking about me. Then I realized people want to be real. They crave that total acceptance of their flaws. So in the words of my Mom, "let your freak flag fly!" "Those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter!"