pink stain

You know how you reach a certain point in life where you are grown enough to actually realize it and take it in when you are learning a life lesson? Or is that just me? Maybe I am just hard headed or a slow life-lesson-learner, or a combination of both. But I think I was in my upper twenties before I was able to actually acknowledge a life lesson as I was learning it, instead of in retrospect.

A few years ago, I was interested in this one particular guy. His name was Danny. And he had a little scar above one side of his upper lip that made his lip/mouth seem a bit crooked. And I realized that physical trait was one of my favorite things about his looks. Which in turn made me realize that, at some point along the way, I had come to prefer slight imperfections over seeming total perfection. Even when it came to looks. And in that moment, I was aware that there was a life lesson happening.

This morning, I was reminded of that life lesson as I was driving to work. I was wearing my favorite hat, and I noticed that the inside of the brim was tinted pink. Obviously, this was a result of wearing my awesome hat in a pool as well as in this lovely one hundred plus degree OKC summer weather. You see, pink and red hair plus sweat or water equals pink tints on whatever is pressed against it.

Now, I remember as a teen I had a white hat that I loved {I've always been a hat girl}. I also loved to wear a lot more makeup then than I do now, and the inside of the brim of my white hat would get makeup on it, and it would drive me crazy. I would wash it and scrub it and bleach it in an attempt to restore it t the original sparkly clean white.

This morning, in my car, I thought about that hat and I smiled. I smiled because the pink stain on the inside of my current favorite-hat-ever doesn't bother me at all. In fact, it makes me happy.

It makes me happy because, one, it shows that this is my hat. I mean, who else has pink bangs? {Okay, so I know there are other people with pink bangs. I'm just saying.} And also, because it's proof of how much I love that hat, and how much I've worn it since just getting it in May, and of the good times I've had wearing that hat already.

And then I was reminded of the life lesson I knew that I was learning several years ago, when I realized that I prefer slight imperfections. And obviously I am talking about more than just a scar above a cute boy's lip, or a pink stain on the inside rim of a cool hat. But hey, remember I said I am hard headed and a slow learner; so maybe God just decided to break it down for me in terms that I could understand and truly grasp. Like boys and fashion. That's my language. :)



~abi~