These days, however, his mantic words have proven that one will be driven to get drunk if you don’t heed them. Growing up we all have these bathetic notions of the wedded bliss and having our very own nuclear family. Thus happens the runway vs. reality scenario of our lives. You know how some clothes look so good at some heroin-fed model on the catwalk and turn out to be nothing short of a sleeve when you wear it in a dressing room? No matter how rational one may be, we can’t help but feel compelled to seek out ideals in our visual environment.
In high school, I wanted the mother who always wore an apron, not the mother in a business suit. I wanted the father who played ball, not play with a highball filled with scotch. I wanted to be married at 21 and have three kids (two of which were twins, both girls). I wanted to be the marrying kind. One with no past, could do no wrong, knew no wrong. If and only if I had that then all these chips on my shoulders would smooth away and I’d have the seemingly perfect life my fair-skinned seatmate seemed to possess. She was a cheerleader, never cussed, had a varsity boyfriend (college) who spoke of marrying her and they even had a daughter in the form of a Cocker Spaniel. Meanwhile, I was doing all the wrong things: smoking, watching Basic Instinct with a passion (hey, I was curious), reading Nancy Friday books, sleeping in class, riding in fast cars with bad boys and lived on ramen. In comparison to the placid façade of my cheerleader friend, I, without an org to elevate my status to upward position, wondered if I was doomed.
Ten years later, I realize I’m not. All the things that I feared would wreck my personal life did in fact occur. Father played, leaving mother dismayed. Years later I would experience the devil of infidelity myself. Yet despite the grief and pain that took a toll on what’s left of my sanity, I’m glad it did happen.
You know the saying that life happens when you are busy making other plans? Indeed it does. We all want the runway version of life, the couture phantom of faultless fantasy. While you try to make that runway version of life for yourself, things start to stink. If you pay close enough attention to the stink and try to figure out where it’s coming from, you realize later that to become the person you want to be is not found on the runway version. When the shit hits the fan, you don’t run for cover. It’s the disgraces, the scandales, the delilahs that make us the people who we are. There is no need to deny any wrongdoing nor feel the sting of shame when you get the short end of the stick. It makes you into who you are.
The runway is good for aspirations. I mean who doesn’t want to look unblemished in a tissue- thin slipdress with ruthless cutouts? However, when it comes to real life, ironically this is when couture comes in. It’s up to you how you want that bespeak life.
My parents would have never realized what they meant to each other if all was seamless. In ironing out the crease together they inevitably changed the shape of their marriage and their ideas on love. Fogeys can be naïve, too, you know. When I had my brush with it, it just made me realize the kind of person I had become. I needed that blow to chip off the layer of guarded pretense and superiority that come from walking on eggshells with success for years. I was freed from my fear and along with it I got a closer look at myself and how fractured I’ve become. I needed a tune-up, which I got and I’ve been running fine ever since.
It is said that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Aside from sharp objects, O.D.s, guns, running vehicles and etc., many things are within our control. You can never control emotions but you can always control its outcome. So I’m a cuckold, so what? Life’s tragedies are the greatest teachers. By understanding so, you learn to withhold from unnecessary attachments and emotions. Hating and being bitter becomes harder to do. You need that hacksaw of humility to emancipate you from the prescribed notions of the ego. Cheers to scandale indeed!
So what if you’re more checkered than plain? You are who you are, you are a product of your choices. Mistakes may take away things for the moment, but if you play your cards right it will bring back fortune tenfold. Nothing is what it ever seems to be and that’s the best thing about this pleasantly deceptive world. To learn, you must understand the undercurrents that guide the tides. If it were all so literal, then the movie ends and we’re all reduced to one really bad commercial.
Life isn’t perfect, and that‘s what makes it perfect!