you have no idea.

There’s a lot of beauty and a lot of mess that ends up together in the same place. And they pretend not to get along, but all the while they are coexisting, permeating all the spaces of your heart until it’s difficult to see where one ends and the other begins.

And it’s beauty and mess and  then beauty and mess and you don’t know how to stuff the mess in the closet while leaving the beauty out for the world to see, just like you did with your clothes when you were little and your grandmother came over.

Your mom told you to clean your room and you took that to mean stuff everything that possesses any stuffability at all in the closet and shut that door tight. Oh, and then grab some starbursts.

And God help anyone who tries to open that door because then they too will be standing in your mess, maybe even covered in your mess.

But then there’s your grandmother. She’s standing in your room and looking at the bright pink of your walls and sees the bed made nicely and your beloved stuffed animals all lined up among the shelves, furry and ready for duty. And she thinks it’s nice, cause why wouldn’t she?

And that’s what gets me about perception.

Stops me in my tracks.

Because we present pictures like this.

Taken right after I flew to California, and I might as well have shown up in an EVAC, I was doing so badly. And see, it’s easy to see the colors that present themselves; it’s also easy to miss the girl balancing for her life.

And I remember walking around, interacting with people who knew nothing about the details of my life, hadn’t seen the bomb go off and then send me packing–literally–and thinking, You have no idea.

But sometimes they’d get it a little right.

Like the time I changed my hair completely. Suddenly I needed to be blond again so I went and told the kind men at the salon to do just that, whatever the cost, and the owner decided to test my psyche.

Or something like that.

Whatever it was, he asked me lots of questions and I didn’t mind because I kind of pretended to be somebody else anyway and it was like developing my backstory, delving into this fascinating character that was gonna end up platinum by the end of the day.

But then he gave me some answers and I don’t really remember many of them but one sure stands out because I immediately recognized it as Something I Didn’t Want to Talk About Because, Shoot, You Could Be Right.

And I know, there are a few things that probably fall into that category, which is why it’s capitalized. And if there were tons of things that fell into that category? You better believe I’d be bolding it too.

But this man, he paused his evaluation of me for a second, and told me this is interesting…with the kind of inference you hope to never hear from your doctor.  And then he said, This answer you gave, the one about the colors and the feelings, that means that sex is bitter for you.

And I know, sex. Whoa. Why does she have to mention this??? is what my mom is probably thinking right now. And if not her, then my brothers; and if not them,  then my sister; and if not her, then the Milk Fairy, for sure.

But maybe I mention it cause it’s part of opening up that messy closet. Or maybe I mention it cause I care about certain things a lot more now and other things a lot less. But well, I guess it’s also a part of my story.

But, sex. Back to that. Or calm down, at least this man’s mention of it, rather. Because after I swallowed my story one more time, I simply said Oh, interesting with a distant sort of apathy.

But my thoughts. That great big mess I had stuffed in the closet for my grandmother. Or the guys at the hair salon. Or the people at my church. I couldn’t help but think, You have no idea.

And I wonder if that’s how God is. Saying You have no idea over and over again to the most frightened parts of me; letting me know that there’s a whole world of goodness that didn’t dry up like seemingly everything else I thought I had.

And here I am looking like I know Him or something, like I can anticipate his moves the way you can after you’ve been playing someone in ping-pong for years. Oh yes, he’s gonna slam it now. Uh-huh, back hand, I so have this. But there’s God. Rolling his eyes a little when I’m not looking because boy, is there something I just don’t know about. And it’s good.

And he’s whispering to the angels like it’s my freaking surprise party that he’s planning and as I walk by, my steps quiet and sad, he’s saying in a voice that carries it all, You have no idea.