Fractured Fairytales or how I learned to make the perfect 3 min egg

Relationships are perhaps the most complex and complicated thing we humans go through even as it strives to fill one of our basic needs....in my opinion. As a single woman in my twenties I had many relationships and not one of them was ever fulfilling. I believe this to be so because I was looking for someone to "complete me"...I had fallen, as many do, under the spell of Hollywood's version of what true love is.  Now, some thirty years later I am learning how wrong Hollywood has been.
                                                              
Relationships are not just confined to a man and a woman but exist through a parent and child, siblings, friends, doctors, etc. We crave interaction with other humans and use relationships to define ourselves. I think women are prone to doing this most of all. When a relationship becomes fractured, like my marriage, we tend to view this as us not being perfect in some way. Women have long rested our perfection notions on such Hollywood gems as June Cleaver or  Laurie Petrie. Perfect hair, dinner, house, children, life. The reality of it is that we are more like Lucille Ricardo or Edith Bunker.

Perfect is described as: "conforming absolutely to the descriptions or definition of an ideal type; excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement". That being said.... perfection simply does not exist. The truth is that we all wake up with drool stains on our pillows, sheet marks on our face and hair that would scare even Bozo the Clown. When you add children to the mix, it's a whole new level of hell and chaos. The best any of us can hope for is getting the kids to school on time and the our spouse (male or female) to work in clothes that match. Speaking only for myself, I was one of those little girls who dreamed of a big wedding. I had a vision of myself walking slowly down a grand staircase dressed in a million dollar Cinderella gown and into the arms of my prince charming. In fact I have a very clear memory of crying bitterly after seeing a rendition of Cinderella because she was beautiful and it was so romantic that I just didn't want it to end.  When my mom would go to Hancock Fabrics to paw at patterns and lust over the plethora of textiles I would always slip away and hang out in the wedding section. There I could find a dress form clad in satin something or other with lace encrusted with sparklies. There was a glass cabinet with wedding veils and head pieces and that was where I secretly planned my wedding.
                                                             
I subscribed to idea of the white picket fence, the 2.5 children, the dog in the backyard and the entire concept of a perfect married life. What I ended up with was a Justice of The Peace wedding, a scant reception in our apartment and all for a grand total of $1700.00 but I was the happiest that I could have ever been on that day despite the fact that I had been fighting with my husband the night before the wedding and a mere hour before the wedding. My husband and I have fought nearly every day until the moment when I realized that perfect was nothing more than smoke and mirrors. That neither he nor I were perfect, never were and never will be. My standards were set too high and rather than lower the bar and give him the opportunity for a small victory, I bitched that he wasn't even trying.

I leave you with this.   

I saw a picture of Gabby Giffords standing with her husband Mark as together they watched the shuttle Endeavor fly low over the U of A this morning. I couldn't help but reflect that against all odds they have survived great tragedy and celebrated greater triumphs. I think that their success comes not from expecting impossible strides from one another along a journey but rather in expecting a journey with each other. When we celebrate the small victories we open ourselves to greater triumphs.When we accept the imperfections as the perfection itself , that's when true love can grow ad flourish. Lowering the bar is not lowering our standards. It's realizing that keeping the bar so high prevents us from seeing the good in another person and makes us old and wrinkled and unhappy way too soon. I still have much to learn but it gets easier as I go. Life is not a series of events that we try to remember when we're 90 and faced with the certainty of death. As Mother Theresa once said:  “Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it......"