dark side

There's a song by Kelly Clarkson. I remember when it came out, and the first time I heard it, it kind of scared me. It really resonated with me, even though I wasn't sure at the time how dark of a side I really had. But I figured that I had one, and eventually that the song was going to mean something to me. Like, I'd be able to completely relate.

Flash forward a few years. 

I'm not perfect. Okay, yeah, I get how cliche that sounds. Nobody's perfect. But, ya know those days or weeks or moments when you are REALLY imperfect? When you really manage to screw something up, or you just have a really rough go of things and can't seem to get most anything right? I had a few weeks like that just last month. It was fun. Ugh. And bless my sweet fiancé's heart, but he didn't know what to do to handle a crazy woman who doesn't know what she wants. 

One night, when I was sitting in my apartment and thinking about how there was no POSSIBLE way that I could ever figure out how to be a normal human being who could be with another human being for all eternity, I thought a little bit about that song. But I couldn't listen to it. I was too nervous.

We ended up figuring stuff out. And really, we needed that bumpy stuff to happen, because it created the ideal situation for us to figure out our REAL problems with communication. It gave us a chance to learn how to say the hard stuff to each other. It helped us face our own and each other's dark sides. 

Flash forward again.

I was on the train the other day, on the way to work, listening to Pandora. And what song happens to come on? Yep.

As I sat thinking about my experience, my encounter with my dark side just weeks before, it solidified the lesson I needed to learn from that completely un-fun experience. We all have unhappy, bleh, gross, dark things deep down inside. Some people have darker, uglier stuff to overcome than others; some make it seem like nothing could get them down; some look like they only have a dark side. 

We all have a dark side. Not in a dramatic, mysterious, troubled-past-like-the-character-of-a-murder-mystery-television-show kind of dark side. It's an imperfect, sometimes confused and tired and real mortal kind of dark side. It's little things like not knowing how to say what we need to say, or using defense mechanisms to push others away, or losing our temper over our weaknesses and where those weaknesses have sometimes led us. We all have a dark side like that. 

And facing it can feel just how it is: dark. And maybe that's part of the reason we have festering dark sides--we also act human in wanting to ignore or forget them. But you want to know the lesson I learned as I sat in my apartment one night in April, feeling especially unhappy and unfixable?? 

My dark side is lonely. And could probably become a little lighter if I just acknowledged it more and tried to fix a few things inside of my heart. Because, that's exactly what I did, a few weeks before. I stood up and took my dark side on over to my best friend's house and introduced that darkness to the one person I could never live without. 

That's what the song is about. Finding someone who will take us for our bright and our dark sides is precious. And rare. 

"Everybody has a dark side. Do you love me? Can you love mine?"

I love the way that both of these questions are put. And since I've been with Mr. Ditto, he's taught me an incredible lesson--you have to answer the first question before you answer the second one. Because if you answer the second one first, more times than not, it will be a very fast "NO." But every time we are dealing with a conflict, and I am asking, "Can I do this? Is this even worth it?" Mr. Ditto is thinking (followed by eloquently saying) that he loves me. And that love makes it worth it. That love is how you live with someone else's dark side. 

Because if the answer to that first question is REALLY, truly, 1000% "YES," then the second one will be a yes as well.

"Everybody has a dark side. Do you love me? Can you love mine? Nobody is picture perfect, but we're worth it, you know that we're worth it."

And we are. All of us. Every person just needs to find somebody who feels the same way.

NOW I get that song. And it doesn't scare me at all. I love it.