Here's to Being Imperfect

Hi. I’m Honestly Imperfect.

This is my blog.

I have no idea what it will look like or what sort of content I will post.

What I do know is, it’s 3:45 am on a Wednesday morning and I haven’t been asleep since 1 pm yesterday.

I have a terrible sleep cycle, partly due to bad habits formed whilst madly studying Biomedical Science at uni for the last three years, and partly because I have PTSD and depression. Also probably partly from the annoying bout of glandular fever I got in year 12 that has given me some sort of mild chronic fatigue - because once you’ve had a virus, you’ve got a friend for life (at least I can always count on them to stick around, yay).

I hate talking about these things because I hate playing the victim. I don’t want to be one of those people that share way too much on every social platform about how terrible their day was because their bones ached if they sat a certain way and had to take 18 pills to only slightly relieve the pain. I feel equal sympathy and annoyance with these people. This is the honest truth. Even as I wrote those sentences, I thought, Am I being too harsh? Is that mean? Maybe it is. But for once I just want to be able to say the honest truth without having a war raging between ‘inside me’ and ‘outside me’ all the time.

I have always tried to be the perfect little Christian girl, striving to please the people around me to earn their love - including God’s. Everything I’ve experienced, I’ve been taught and have taught myself to see the lesson in it - What does God want me to understand from this? How can my experience help others? Can I use this to become stronger? You might be thinking that they are all good questions to ask myself - and they are. They’ve certainly helped me through many difficulties in my life, as have the people walking alongside me working through these questions with me.

But I realised that when I’ve tried to write about my challenges in the past, I’ve always tried to add something meaningful at the end. That everything turned out fine! That I prayed and worked through it and God got me out the other side! And this is good and true about many of my difficulties, and something I am so thankful for. However, I recognise now that I felt pressure to make my struggle sound nice when writing or sharing with others. Fluff it up with some pretty song lyrics and a couple of verses that tie it all together.

This was me attempting to be perfect in my imperfections. Ha.

Life is not perfect, and I am not perfect. Far from it. I struggle with self-hate, anger, hurt, betrayal, abandonment, disillusionment, trauma, anxiety, and the list goes on. Right now, I am in the middle of dealing with this at the worst it’s ever been for me. I don’t know when it will end, and I wish it never began. I don’t have a pretty bow to tie my life up and make it sound not so crappy at the moment. In fact, that bow might as well have been trampled on and dragged through the mud until it is no longer recognisable. The song lyrics have changed from sweet calming Christian worship to angsty, anger fuelled ones. There are no Bible verses that I cling to at the moment. And this breaks my heart. In fact, it makes me sob. Because I miss that intimacy with the Lord. He’s always been my closest companion and I can’t feel Him or His love very well right now.

So I guess I’m hoping that in me writing this, it won’t solve my problems. It won’t be pretty, or perfect. But it will be the truth. And the truth sets us free, so I’m praying that over this process I will be able to lean into the Lord again with a heart that is slowly being changed and renewed day by day.

If I was one to drink (and if I was even invited to a party where I would do so, heh), now would be the time that I would make a toast. But who says I can’t make one anyway, imaginary mock-tail in hand and captivated audience to top it off?

So, my toast.

Here’s to simply being honestly, imperfectly, me.

#honestlyimperfect