#4 - Perfectly Wrong

I have a condition.  A condition that for many years I chose to ignore, because I wasn’t altogether sure it was real – sort of like Bieber Fever.  Finally convinced that denial was getting me nowhere, I decided to seek help.  So, about ten years ago I scrounged up a co-pay and went to a doctor who confirmed my suspicions; I was clinically depressed.  Even as I write these words, I wonder if I'm making it all up, merely because I don't have any real problems.  But, for the most part, I’ve learned to live with the reality of having a chemical imbalance, and one that will likely never go away.  My depression isn’t always manifest, and I have different triggers that set it off.  Sometimes it’s my natural biorhythm, or maybe when I forget to take my medicine.  Sometimes it’s just stress and fatigue.  One of the catalysts, however, is counterintuitive.  It is when life seems perfect.  Too perfect.

Like the fake lake in the middle of my in-laws master planned community.  I don’t know what they put in the water to make it neon blue, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same stuff my grandmother used to put in her toilet bowl.  Or the precision-manicured trees, hedges, and lawns in my own neighborhood (deed restrictions require each new home that is built in my section to have exactly 2 oaks trees, or 1 pine and 1 oak…you know, just to make the place look more natural).  Every time I drive by a new strip center that is an exact replica of the thirty I’ve just passed – complete with a bank, nail salon, and donut shop – a small piece of me dies inside. Every once in awhile, I’ll see a rebellion in the making, and I get a little giddy.  Such as when a real estate agent makes the gutsy call to put up a billboard without a glamour shot.  Or the time my neighbor uprooted his standard-issue oak and replaced it with a (gasp) palm tree.  I love it when people stick it to the man.

Nothing saps my soul, however, more than ‘relational’ perfection.  And unfortunately, many of my relationships are perfect…reduced to some superficial glad-handing and trite well-wishes, as brief as they are forgettable.  I can be all tied up in knots, feeling direction-less in my job, but be more compelled to chat about how grateful I am that fall has finally arrived.  Walking into church on Sunday morning, I will give a handful of hearty back slaps and side hugs, but tell no one that I just yelled at my kids for their incessant squabbling.  Why let on to close friends that Su and I are disconnected, when NFL talk is much less awkward?  If I’m feeling especially vulnerable, maybe I’ll confide that one of my co-workers is struggling with gossip.

I suppose that small talk has its place, but I’ve never been any good at it (if I’ve ever dished with you about, for instance, the inbound traffic congestion on I-45, you’ll know what I mean).  If I never had another meaningless conversation again, I think I’d be okay.  Not to say that every interaction has to be some deep, gut-wrenching disclosure of our deepest wounds.  But I’d love to engage in sincere, honest discussions about the stuff that really matters.  I want to tell you what I’m pumped about, and hear the same from you.  I want to talk about our triumphs and our screw-ups.  I want to talk about what we’re actually thinking about, and not just the sterilized version.  I want, when asked, ‘How’s it going?’, for my first instinct not to be a lie. 

Then again, maybe it’d just be easier to stay surface-y.  After all, you may not like what you see in me.  Or I in you.  Maybe we’ll conclude that depth is overrated, and that knowing and being known incurs a little too much risk.  Let’s just exchange a few pleasantries, share a few laughs, and keep it all nice and tidy.  Perfect.

A little too perfect.