I'll Take Your Hand While you Stumble if You'll Laugh with Me When I Fall

My roommate writes a blog about being HIV+.  He realized a couple of days ago that he got the date of his diagnosis wrong on his blog title.  He's been blogging since January.  He corrected the mistake and started things anew with the proper date.  Easily fixed, yes. But I could tell it was somewhat frustrating.

I didn't notice the mistake either. It's funny how two people with high educations and sharp minds can miss things like this.  It doesn't surprise me though.  That sort of thing happens as one ages, when one deals with illness and being draggy and tired.  The whole discussion, when we were younger, probably would have skyrocketed into embarrassment and deep, if good natured, mocking. Instead, it ended up with us chuckling a little and both somewhat in awe of the fact that we didn't catch the mistake.

One of the things I have come to appreciate about being human, and experiencing life with other humans, is accepting, with a kind of grace, the fragility of our existence.

We're not perfect.  It's clichéd to even say so. And all too often, when we do say this, there is behind it this implication that we should be perfect. That our imperfection as humans is an lousy excuse because we should be perfect.  The irony is, if we were perfect, imperfection wouldn't bother us so much. We would accept it as part of the grand design of things. As perfect beings, how could we not? Alas, as Joseph Addison said, "It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect."

Moreover, we seem to expect perfection in others. People make lists of all the qualities someone has to have before they will love them.  People wind themselves up into a state of constant misery because others aren't living up to their expectations.  Some people even put clauses in their marriage contracts that the other party can't fart around them. Or look old. Or gain weight. Or have bad breath.

Or really, be human.

I've known my roommate since I was 21.  We've lived together for almost ten years.  In this time, we've seen each other get degrees, find jobs, lose jobs, get ill, get better, lose family members, lose friends, find hobbies, win at life, fail hard at life, and make new discoveries about ourselves.  Through all of this, we have been there to help each other.  We've made a home.

And most importantly, we have learned to accept each other as humans.  We know that we can screw up and say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing. We know we both have personality flaws and idiosyncrasies  and moments of odd behavior.  Sometimes our bodies do grow things.  Sometimes our bodies cause us a lot of pain and we have to be in pain while someone else watches us.

But through all of this, we are human. We not only accept each other as humans, but value that humanity.  To me, to have someone who accepts me so much is a great gift.  More importantly, to have someone who I care so much about that I can move past my petty whims and accept and adore them for their human fragility is an even greater gift.

Joseph Addison went on, in his discussion of imperfection, to say that, "The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become of the defects of others." I believe this to be true. I also believe the reason for it has to do with how we become more perfect as we find that gentleness.  And we find that gentleness when we are accepted and loved, despite our own imperfections.