“I don’t have to be perfect. All I have to do is show up and enjoy the messy, imperfect and beautiful journey of my life.” ~ Kerry Washington

My checkered past has made me who I am; it has made me more interesting, more intrinsically appealing.

It has given me my unfathomable depths; full of mysteries that have yet to be fully revealed.

I have no desire to take a lover who is flawless, who has no baggage, because I always wonder, what living have they done? What have they experimented with? What have they failed at? What risks has their heart taken?

Instead, I know that I want someone who is messy, dirty and not at all perfect; someone who understands my wild impetuous gaze and who would never mind getting down and dirty with me in this life.

So I simply ask any potential lover to bring it; all that which is stained and imperfect.

Bring me deep scars and epic battle wounds.

I want his untold secrets, with enough baggage to fill a cab headed out west into the blazing setting sun. I dream that his stories will smell like Patron Silver and taste like melted Dulce de leche and that they will keep us awake late into the  night—the meanderings of “Oh, I should have never….” and “I wish I had known…” while I am anchored against his side, his strong hand tracing the shadows of the burning fire against my bare hip next to his while we travel the darkened allies of his past together.

Bring me grit.

His most buried mistakes, especially those that he shakes his head in disbelief and still physically cringes at. I want to see not the man that most of the world sees, but the one whose good intentions are stitched together with hope, mistakes and maybe a little bit of glistening luck. I will believe in the part of him that questions life on a daily basis, but will still rise with the sun and try even harder tomorrow. I want to see the side of him that he’s put effort into hiding; into disguising as someone that actually walks the line.

Bring me a calloused heart and skepticism.

All of it; unlock that tightly woven chain and let it all out. His heartbreak and pain; tears falling, staining my skin, tasting of warm Jameson and a loss so deep it still leaves ripples upon the surface. Memories that bring him to his knees on the dusty road, and that faraway look when he drifts off to that other time…that other place…the one that is filled with the handfuls of things that he wished he had gotten to do, the sunrises he wished he had seen, and the kisses he wished he had taken advantage of.

Bring me honesty.

Truth is but a deception according to perception; instead I will ask him to drop the act and lay it down like he never has before. Misconceptions and fears don’t matter much to me, and neither does what may have come before this moment. I hope he has made a million bitter mistakes; I hope he’s been hurt and I hope he’s done the hurting. I hope he’s been so wild, he thought he’d never be tamed (because he probably won’t be).

I hope he danced along the edge one too many times, and I want to hear it all. Every crazy story, every mistake, every regret; because I too have a woven basket full of the “I wish it had been different,” but yet I will understand that every single thing that has happened on our separate journeys will have made us who we are in this moment, and I wouldn’t want to change a thing about it.

Bring me real.

Bad days, and long nights; his morning stubble against my soft breasts, his strong confident hands leaving fingerprint bruises on my hips, and the deep kisses that will make my knees weak. Life unscripted; unglorified. If he and I have been doing it right, we will have a collection of experiences and memories that make up the story of who we are. He and I may have pain, fears, even trepidation; the key to all of that will be the ability to have learned from where we have been so that we can determine where we want to go.

I don’t just want messy, and dirty, but the knowledge and intelligence to find the meaning in all of it. I want real; the ability to admit mistakes or to be able to say that there is no such thing, if we were able to learn from it. I want uncomfortable honesty that will make me shake down to my bones, because I’ve had enough skipping through shallow puddles to last a lifetime.

It’s ironic that the very parts of myself that I’ve gone to great lengths to disguise end up being the very same qualities that others fall in love with. I am intense; crazy at times, complicated at others; honest and loyal to a fault. My bare feet are often dirty, my messy hair smelling like sunshine; dreaming far too much, and speaking from my heart probably more than I should.

I’m about as messy and imperfect as they come.

So bring it. All of it.

All I will ask of him is to bring me his messy, dirty imperfections; his scraped knuckles and his good intentions.

To just bring it.

Relephant:

Marry a Man who Knows you are Real.

Mindful speech for relationships:

Author: Kate Rose

Editor: Emily Bartran

Photo: Ludmila Vilarinhos/Flickr

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