Golden

February, for me at least, seems to be mental health awareness month.  I’ve been working with a therapist for a few months now and couple that with my meds and I feel that I am doing better.  Not great.  Not perfect.  Better.  

It takes work, however.  A lot of work.  A willingness to really look at yourself and faults, but also a willingness to look at yourself and the traumas in your life.

Strangely, I’ve found a good metaphor for this.  At least, it works for me.

Kintsugi.  It’s a Japanese technique to repair broken pottery.  “As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise”.

In my writings about my mental health and that journey and in my self reflections and in dealing with my therapist and therapy, it is a good way to put it and to see it.  Because, when you think about it, that is what we are as people.  We are made up of our histories.  The breakage.  Repair.  The good and the bad.  

I have a bit of body dysmorphia, due to multiple surgeries.  It’s mostly my upper body, but shirtless, I have scars that cover me.  Shoulder, chest, side, and abdomen.  I’m coming to see this as not bad.  Not that I’m saying that it’s good, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.  It’s not a zero sum.  It’s not that my surgeries healed me therefore scars are good, it’s not that I needed surgery therefore I was weak.  It’s that I had surgeries and the scars remain.  Kintsugi.

Mentally, I have scars as well.  They are the same.  Not good because I endured.  Not bad because I am broken and weak.  Just me.  Part of me.

That’s not saying that I’m allowed to be a major a$$@&!% to people, but that I can allow that flaw to exist.  That it can be patched and smoothed over and made better.  Not perfect.  Better.  

That is what I strive for… Being better.  Finding my balance.  Understanding my past, the breakage, repair, good, bad, happy, sad, up, down, and all the rest.  Kintsugi.

It is easier to do all of this with Kiddo in my life, I will admit that.  Because, when I walk in during the afternoon and I see someone having a snack and watching a show like this….

Well, it’s hard to not stop  and just laugh.  It was even more ridiculous when I walked in, but by the time I got my phone and camera up, it was only slightly wonky, instead of totally wonky.

When you live life to the max and turn it all up to 110 everyday, you sit and watch shows like this.  You also have legs like this.

Seriously, WTF Kiddo?  Did you play a World Cup match with no shin guards?  Did you fight ninjas?  Jeez!

And I asked her about it.  “I don’t know…. Playin’.  Or maybe it was Poley in the middle of the night.”

“Don’t say Poley did that!  POLEY DID NOT!  Poley eats salmon, not shins.  BUTTHEAD!”

Cue disappointed deadpan Kiddo - “Dada, he’s saying the B word again.”

Yeah, Kiddo has the make me smile part nailed.  She owns it.  

Let’s go, Kiddo… Time for more hard playing and Poley saying B words!