Love is like the deacon two-step, not the waltz

So I'm pretty sure I just caught on to something most people have understood intuitively their whole lives. Maybe it's my OCD tendencies to want perfection in certain aspects of life while others wallow in crapulent mediocrity, maybe it's because I expect the world to work according to my personal sense of logic, whatever the reason I've always expected every problem to have a perfect solution. I realize now that this is irretrievably naive. Plans fail, people change, and things don't work out perfectly. I guess it comes back to well, relationships.

Not just romantic ones mind you, but all relationships. Sometimes I think we need to say things in relationships that aren't easy to say, they're messy. The alternative is to be silent. Ideally we all fall in love with someone who is equally, madly, in love with us and we all live happily after. The reality however is that, in my experience, no relationships are so cut and dry. A guy goes on a mission and a girl he loves gets married. He finds a new girl and his friend is interested in her too. The girl doesn't notice the guy until after he has decided to move on. All of the above and many more situations come up in life. There is no fast or easy solution to any of these scenarios. Any solution that actually works involves risk and more than likely a great possibility for embarrassment. It also involves unequal portions of poetic moments and awkward behavior. Every once in a while, I'll stop and think to myself that life is beautiful. It's usually not poetic, predicable, or even palatable at times, but then sometimes it is. Life is like finger painting: some people are hesitant to get involved or get dirty. They convince themselves it's better not to try than to risk looking foolish. Other people dive in, mix the colors, and make life interesting. I'm not so afraid of finger painting any more.

It is not the critic who counts; not the one who points out how the strong stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to those in the arena; who strive valiantly, who fail and come up short again and again; who know enthusiasm and great devotion; who at the best know in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if they fail, at least fail while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

~Theodore Roosevelt