Some of us look like a poster child for the human condition.
You know what I am talking about.
We are ugly, or poor, or sick, or elderly, or neurotic.
Maybe some of us are just tired and could use a little therapy.
We are all such a mess, aren’t we?
But here is the thing.
The more we see each other’s mess, the less we have to pretend and hide.
Sometimes there is no more fertile ground for this than the family.
I just love that.
There are pictures of the people in my family where we look like the most awkward and desperate folk you ever saw, poster children for the human condition. But I like that, when who we are shows. Everything is usually so masked or perfumed or disguised in the world, and it’s so touching when you get to see something real and human. I think that’s why most of us stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or dull—because when people have seen you at your worst, you don’t have to put on the mask as much.
-Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies