We All Love a Good Pretense...

“There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.”
― Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

I'm not  sure what sort of impression I give off as I write on this blog. So some of you may be surprised when I tell you that I absolutely love a good Sarah Dessen novel. For others, it may not surprise you at all, and I'm going to work on the assumption that if your reading this, you care. I think the main reason that I love her books is because she is very real. Her characters go through a ton of crap and some of them, if not all, make bad decisions, however, they come out of it... I wont say okay or the same... but they are more mature and they learn from the circumstance. We all know that life sucks and crap happens, but we don't always take the time to learn from it. I love the fact that Dessen novels give you permission to yell and kick and scream, but show you that light at the end of the tunnel. And there is one.
When she writes a story, you will always find yourself in a character. Always. I do every single time. And half the time it isn't even the main character or even her friend, but the ones on the side. All of the characters are real. In "Keeping the Moon" I most related to Mira... I just clicked with her character and felt a connection to her story.
The reason I even bring up Sarah Dessen novels is to tell you that I just finished one. It was titled 'Just Listen'. It was amazing and, though it was not my absolute favorite (The Truth About Forever was my favorite), it was compelling and satisfying just like all the others. The quote that I entered above really caught me though.
Specifically the part where she says, "There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart..." At first I read that and didn't understand it at all. "The world gets quiet..." What on earth did that mean? The world is never quiet... But then I thought about it. She isn't necessarily talking about the world as I was thinking about it. With cars speeding by and an overabundance of people and things and hurts and issues... I think that she was talking about when you struggle and hurt, you lie and you hide, you deny and you ignore life (the world she was describing) and then suddenly life catches up with you. You find yourself tired and sick of running, the truth is out. And that is when you have to look at yourself, your heart,your intentions, your actions, your character, and the product of your struggle and think about it. Do you recognize yourself? Is the person that's there the same as the one you have been pretending to be? If you had only the real you to go by, only what was left after every pretense is stripped away, would you know who you were? Would others? And even more, does any ones opinion matter but your own?
Who do you answer to?
I thought about these things and had no answer. I mean, I'm a Christian, so I try to live for God and to walk by his principles. Try being the operative word. I will not tell you that I am perfect. I'm a sinner just like everyone else, I don't claim to be anything better, God doesn't ask me to be perfect... but when I thought about this quote, when I consider my own failures and secrets, I wasn't sure where I was in it all. Whether or not I would be able to recognize myself. There is a part of me, deep down, that feels that I wouldn't. The truth is, despite how others view me, despite the image I try to give off, I have done like the characters in a Dessen novel. I have kicked and screamed and yelled at God. I have questioned and spit in the face of everything that I always claimed to be. I walked off on my own and still pretended to be the good Christian Girl who is never wrong. In essence, I have walked the path of the hypocrite. But once I strip down to only me. Once I see myself as I really am and I look at the bare minimum, only what's there, I realize that perfect isn't what God or anyone else that matters to me wants. Being perfect is not what will help me in life. Perfection is a myth. Like August Boatwright in "The secret Life of Bee's" said, "Theres nothing perfect. Only life."
So once the façade I create has slipped away, whats left? Theres me, the girl who likes to wear old lady sweaters with matching knit vests, in her worn out but amazing high top shoes all together with her robot shaped ear rings. She has short hair, and a love for writing, living for God as best she can. Giving him what she has... Theres the girl who loves to  garage sale on Saturday afternoons with, you guessed it, her Memah, and the girl who loves reading, well, anything. She has a temper and a big mouth and an abundance of other flaws, she loves simple things, and is a sucker for a good sappy novel, she's me...

                                                                -KC-