the messy middle

        Great article posted by Jen Lemen, who is also cofounder of the site Mondo Beyondo...
Really pointed out what it must feel for most of us sometimes, I found myself there, between the lines of her written thoughts....

      "The last two weeks (and two months! and two years!) have been a real roller coaster for me and not necessarily the good kind. I’ve witnessed once-in-a-lifetime moments of dignity, humility and grace and have at the same time been breathless in the face of foolishness, hardness and a kind of collapsed down capacity to love, some of it my own. The funny thing about moments like these is that they serve as a mirror because in everyone else’s raw, unedited data, you can see yourself crystal clear–looking back, doing the exact same things, with the same degree of remarkable courage and hard-to-watch immaturity, all in the name of love and “what’s right.”
This new wave of clarity I’m experiencing is hard to hold, but it is necessary. I asked for it by picking CLEAR for my word this year, and now I’m swimming in new realizations that are shifting the ground right under my feet, giving me a new foundation where it is essential I learn to stand.
Most of the time, I play hard on both sides of the continuum–all right or all wrong, but these days, with everything under the microscope, I’m learning the grace of the messy middle. The messy middle where no one gets it right even 50% of the time, where risks are taken and mistakes are made, where love twists and turns until it finds a way to surface wherever it will be most powerful, wherever it cannot fail to make a difference.
Here in the messy middle, I continue to berate myself for gross errors and congratulate myself for noble triumphs, but I’m starting to see that the real gift in all of it is the way I’m learning to be present to my life. So much is “all wrong” now, but I’m here and awake and alive to people I love (my kids especially) in a way I never was before when I was trying to do it “all right”. So much is irreparable and lost, but I’m here and awake and alive to the ways I was fast asleep when I was hoping that no one would get hurt if I avoided conflict or tried to keep the peace by claiming everything is always fine with me or tried to resolve some key issues without the key players. (untrue, of course)

Those tiny things–to be present for my kids and awake to my responsibility to speak up are making me think the messy middle isn’t so bad after all. I’m starting to see a way through where I don’t have a hundred lives divided up in a million different places. I’m starting to see a way where I can be truly myself no matter who I’m with or what’s required or where I am. It’s still a mess–trust me, an unspeakable mess that would send anyone over the edge–but I’m hoping to love it anyway–along with all the people and choices that helped me arrive here just on time."