This is a piece of humble pie. It’s not much a part of my diet these days, for physical purposes as much as taste. And it was never a preferred dish as a child and young adult. In fact, I think I managed to avoid it through the bulk of my formative years. Unfortunately, a proper balance of humble pie in those important years is rather a good way of ensuring a balanced adult. As such, I wasn’t much balanced or perhaps good for many years. I made up for it in recent years, and my belly will attest to that as much as my countenance and attitude.
A humble pie comes from humility. You can’t make it any other way, and you shouldn’t eat it without making sure the humility is pure. For a long time, it was more important for me to be right than it was to be good. If people got hurt in the process, if my honesty and sound arguments were too cutting, then the fault was not mine. Truth without conviction is a sketchy thing. Truth without honor or decency stands cold and alone. Being right does not mean being happy. Being right also doesn’t mean being perfect. And somewhere in my youth and childhood that got all mixed up.
Only rather recently have I been able to own up to my many imperfections, to the myriad faults and shortcomings that comprise this forty-five year old human being that some days barely wants to stand before you. The journey to giving up the ghost of perfection – that tricky tease that has haunted me for as long as I can remember – has been a long one, and I don’t really think there’s an end in, or out of, sight. That’s a good thing.
The moment I gave up the notion of being perfect was the moment I started to feel alive in a way I had never felt before. It came with a thrilling sense of freedom, an untethered joy that I never quite allowed myself to enjoy. I’d have regretted it if that wasn’t such a waste. Instead, I stumble happily along, pausing for pie when the mistakes pile up, sometimes having to gorge an entire one myself, but it’s always worth the calories and the reckoning.
