Norman Rockwell and White Picket Fences

Sometimes I wish that the game of life were more like a painting or a pallet of color; intentionally blended to a visual perfection complete with the artist's signature in the corner. But it's not. It is a forward motion of hues and sometimes the colors conflict and run in an inexplicable direction. I have struggled my entire life to make everything look good, to make everyone believe that my pallet is perfect... as if every day were the final presentation. of my art.  I was always claiming my independence and strength with hidden tears that were cried in the middle of the night, unseen and unheard by anyone, including those closest to me. I have always taken the stance that I don't need help or sympathy and I am simply fine doing things my way. A picture is only a picture and it's only perfect because the artist has had time to make corrections as he chooses. Life is quite different. Mistakes can be made privately and publicly, mistakes that hurt you and your loved ones. I'm sure that even Norman Rockwell had real life issues that were not represented by his art, yet I believe that I can't be the only one that desires to personify his paintings. The harder I try to make Christmas feel like ice skaters and snowflakes, the more frustrating it becomes to achieve the impossible. I don't ice skate and it doesn't even snow in Florida. Sometimes reality can hit you in the eye like bleach.

Things like Facebook and other social websites become our own Rockwell painting. I look through my pictures and see laughter and good times representing nothing of the real pain and struggle that is consecutive and consecrated in the everyday real stuff. A white picket fence looks so pretty when it's clean and freshly painted, but beneath the dirt is what really holds it up...and that's not the part that we want people to see. Oh, how we struggle to keep loss, pain, rejection and suffering below the dirt. Everything is "fine", everything is "perfect". My Norman Rockwell in actuality was far less than perfect when you mix real life into it. While raising my son, things were never perfect. His family was broken, how could there be perfection? I constantly struggled to maintain control of everything. He constantly struggled to be his own man and I wanted to keep him mine, and safe. Though we are exactly alike, sometimes it was water and oil in my effort to control everything. I never knew joy until he came in to my life and I look at him now and I am humbled that I had even a piece of it. It was an experience that I would not trade for anything in the world. My challenges however were created by me alone. I really never reached out to anyone "standing in my corner" and to be honest, I really wouldn't have recognized that there was anyone in my corner. I was tired and alone and always felt that, like my gas tank, my corner was empty. Unlike the artist, in real life you can't just trash your work and start over with a clean slate every time. In the process of starting over, you have undoubtedly left someone's emotions behind. You may have unintentionally just brushed right through the heart of someone you love in your attempt to repaint the pretty picture. The older I get, the more I realize that my canvas is not new, my colors have aged and the paint is chipping from previous unresolved issues. Those restarts weren't really restarts and my emotional thickness that I carried for so long has thinned and brittled. I no longer keep it together like I used to. There was a ten year period in my life that I can recall never shedding a single tear in anyone's presence. My own heart thought that I myself was broken. I was made of steel, inside, outside, and all the way through...unfortunately I tend to still behave like steel but I can crumble like aluminum at the drop of a hat. Reality really does hit you in the eye like bleach.

As I peel back the layers of paint, my tears drop on the canvas and don't always blend with the oil. It is my picture and I can't change any of the past. I used what I had at the time and I drew from the only source of strength that I knew. I often misinterpreted and misunderstood what I thought I knew. I acted when I should have listened, barreled  through when I should have regrouped, stood on a lone corner and failed to recognize my allies. I somehow got to where I am with enough of "me" left to offer my husband something real that includes the dirt, the paint and the canvas. I thank God for that. I also thank God for my son, although we have a tendency to clash externally at times, he is part of my internal canvas and I am part of his. We are bonded together and always will be. He shared my heartbeat for nine months and he was the most important thing in my life. He is exactly like me, the good, the bad and the ugly, and we will continue to forge our way through this painting until the day I lay my head down and sign my name for the very last time.

1 Corinthians 13:12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. (NLT)

It doesn't have to be pretty to be beautiful.