The other day I sat down to do an exam on a patient with Asperger’s syndrome.  As I put on my gloves, he asked lots of questions.  He wanted to know exactly what I was doing, and with no socially-motivated filter in place to halt his verbal barrage, I got an earful.  I headed toward him with the fluoride, explaining that I was about to put vitamins on his teeth.  To which he replied, “Okay, but just don’t get them on my tongue.  If you get them on my tongue, I’ll get really riled up.  And I’ll start doing this–” (he waved his arms around emphatically)–“and kicking and stuff.”

That is one self-aware kid, I thought upon leaving the room.  And I considered how the inability to posture oneself according to social norms, how an excess of natural honesty, can land one in the “disabled” column of our culture.

A few minutes later I received an expression of ostensible concern (layered over discomfort) about one of my recent blog posts.  My musings had apparently been discussed among a panel of reviewers and deemed depressing, and now my well-being was called into question.  From my perch overlooking the promise of spring outside, I assured the reader that rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated.

Since I try to wait until after 5 pm to bombard The Husband with the estrogen-soaked issues of the day, I rang The Sis for an assessment on whether my words actually convey the hope in which I believe. And, as usual, she was a voice of reason–my unflappable alter-ego, the Me I would be with four inches of height added and the temper subtracted.  She pointed out one of the real issues at stake, which is that going public with my thoughts will inevitably lead to their being misunderstood–this is the price paid for transparency.

I don’t know if it’s a Southern thing (I tend to blame my dysfunction on either the South or my family, scapegoats that are diminishing in power as I become ever-more aware of and reconciled to the facts of the Fall and this broken world), but for much of my life I have been surrounded by, and have participated in, a group effort to promote conformity at the cost of creativity, to squash imaginative efforts with ridicule when they make me uncomfortable or point out truths I’d rather keep denying.  I remember when I arrived on the New York scene and couldn’t believe the celebration of individualism, the variety of conversations that spanned beyond football and hunting, the encouragement of artistic endeavors, the absence of words that reduce a group of people to a color or sexual orientation.  I remember thinking that this was what the world looked like when it wasn’t just white, Christian, and conservative (three things which I still am, minus the demand that everyone else be too…most days…), that I could be anyone I wanted here in this place, most importantly myself.  And how being that person didn’t look like it had back home: trying, working, measuring, acting.  I looked different–more free, more real, more honest.  More flawed.

The journey that began when I climbed out of the U-Haul on 92nd Street and First Avenue has led me to ever-increasing points of openness, both with myself (hard) and others (harder).  It has led to a blog that discusses depression and struggle, sometimes at the expense of a roundtable on whether Carrie should have married Big.  What I believe, and what my faith confirms, is that vulnerability is the shortest road to community, because the work of evil is to leave us thinking that we are the only ones facing This, that we’re the only ones guilty of That.  An isolation defined by the singularity of our shortcomings rather than the commonality of them.

Now that Spring is upon us and my mood is lifting, there may very well be more posts about makeup and laughter, maybe even a review of Sex and the City 3: Did I Leave My Dentures on Your Nightstand? But the fact remains that who I am is all broken bits and rough edges this side of eternity, and it would do me well not to deny that in thought or online.  I am on a path that has left me a different person than I was ten years ago and will lead to even more changes down the line.  What remains consistent is my ever-present fallibility.  What remains more consistent is the ever-present grace that meets me in those broken and rough spots, filling holes and smoothing edges and doing so in its own perfect timing and way (which is to say, usually not mine).  Last night, in a fit of the anger that seems always ready to be tapped just beneath the surface of this broken world and my fallen heart, I slammed the uncooperative dishwasher shut so hard I broke a glass.  The flu-ridden Husband rushed over, picking up my broken pieces and meeting them with love rather than judgment–and better at it than I may ever be.  And I realized that the Gospel was written for people like me, who fail so often but at every point of that failure are met with love.  And that is a LOT of love.  I am not where I will be, but I’m not where I was–and I’ve got the words to show it.