Example A.
Last night Derek and I were preparing some guacamole to bring to a friend's house for dinner. Ever since the day I first tried guacamole, we've been inseparable since, and disclaimer: I have become infatuated with an avocado salsa recipe I found on Pinterest that I think is the bees knees. I promise if you try it you'll feel a renewed sense of happiness in your life.But back to the story I had initially started to make the guacamole when Derek stubbornly chimed in and said he would make it I've learned in the nearly 2 years of our relationship to oblige him when he says he seems hell bent on something.
To fully understand the situation that comes next it's important to note that while Derek and I share many similar interests and tastes, we do vary when it comes to one thing, that being how we like our guacamole. Derek is on team creamy and dreamy, where as I'm on team chunky and hunky. It's not that I don't like creamy guacamole, I just think chunky is better.
(This looks so much better, right?!)
(bleh)
So when Derek told me he wanted to make creamy guacamole, I decided to take offense. Offense that he wouldn't be considerate enough to make it the way I wanted. And not just that he wouldn't make it the way I wanted, but I was offended that he would like creamy guacamole at all (silly, right?). But nevertheless it's how I was feeling.
Then this conversation ensued:
Derek: How about I do half and half creamy and chunky guacamole.
Me: No, that's stupid.
Derek: C'mon now! I'm trying to work with you. Can't you see that?!
Me: How can you even like creamy guacamole? I don't want to see you anymore tonight. I can't stand you.
Derek: Why are you being so mean?!
Me: Go away!
(Derek gets a frustrated hurt look on his face of disbelief and I rage off to the bedroom and slam the door shut).
This ignoring Derek and being mad at him situation lasted for all about an hour last night. He's really hard to stay mad at. In fact I'm willing to bet no one really could in good conscience ever stay mad at him for more than a hot second.
But it had me thinking again. Why am I so obviously mean sometimes, when I know I can and should be better? Why do I take offense to things when offense was never intended? Why do I treat someone as special and important to me like crap when he deserves better? How could I act exactly like the type of thing and person I despise? Am I really a good person in the end?
Derek has a host of experiences with me now he could hold against me and say "Here! I told you he wasn't a good person!". And he'd be completely right. So many guilt ridden moments like this silly guacamole fiasco, where things escalated to something they shouldn't have and I acted contrary to my beliefs and I do or say something I regret. This is actually a legitimate fear of mine I've often had but never spoken, where I worry if Derek will still love me, having seen the dark side there is to me. I wonder sometimes if he thinks any goodness to me is just a lie.
That fear seems to precipitate into other relationships of mine, most particularly the ones I have which are rocky at best, or now non existent. I make mistakes, and I worry about those mistakes and the barriers they've created for someone to see the good things that I desire.
And what it comes down to it, perhaps that's why I stress over it, because I'm all the above. And that's a strange thing to acknowledge.
Forgive my grammar but my goodness is just that, Goodness, and I couldn't claim it to be anything other than that. My badness also, is exactly that, and would be wrong to call good or anything else.
If I've learned anything in my life so far it's that there's no value in faking something that isn't true, or aggrandizing something that isn't so. The real value in anything lies in acceptance.
And I think the term acceptance has got a bad rap. I think we often see acceptance (myself included) as taking something for lesser value than what it could be. We accept the fact that we're overweight, when we should be thinner, or we accept the fact that we're "same sex attracted" when we could be "opposite sex attracted", or we accept the reality that we aren't making more than we'd like, or doing more than we should, etc. etc. So on and so forth. Really what I think might be most relatable to acceptance so as to help clear this subversive thinking is acknowledgement. We fully acknowledge how things are. I acknowledge that I acted wrong with Derek in getting mad for not wanting his guacamole the way I like it. I acknowledge that I've done things before that were contrary to how I wanted to be.I acknowledge how things can be.
Really we can't move forward in anything till we do accept things for how they are. When we can accept all of something or someone, love grows. We grow.
What I see now as the underlying notion in my fear of the answer to the question of whether I'm good or not, is the fear that if I'm not, that I'm not worthy of being loved.I can see now that that thinking is irrational and uninspired. When it comes down to it there isn't anything I can do that will make me any less worthy of love. Every single person deserves to be loved, no matter what. That's what unconditional love is, and if was at all conditional on something, then it's not really love. And if it's not really love, then why the heck are we doing it?
Enough of me trying to be philosophical and prophetic.
I want to be a good person, the best person I can be. And I want to do good in the world.
And because of those good desires I think the wrestle with my initial question will always be there. It needs to be there.
But as far my guacamole goes, there is no question, chunky is best. Chunky is ALWAYS best.
“You couldn't relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole--like the world, or the person you loved.” ― Steward O'Nan
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