GROUP A: Well-intentioned, amiable folks who are truly kind and loving. They’ve got it going on. Safe.

GROUP B: Bitter, self-deluded ne’er-do-wells who make bad decisions that hurt those around them. Unsafe.

Why must the never-tiring sorter that sits hunched up in my brain find a way to cram every single person into one of these two boxes? With the exception of a few fortunate individuals who have not interacted with me enough to be assigned to either category, I pass this judgment so subconsciously and instantaneously that almost no one I know is immune from its verdict.

Why am I always taken aback when someone from Group B extends me kindness? Why am I so quick to let them switch places with someone from group A who has grieved me? Surely, even the corroded, gnarled-up, ugliest part of my sub-conscious must realize that human beings are more complex than any on/off switch can account for.

I should not be surprised at the members of Group B who demonstrate Group A tendencies—because, you see, Group B does not exist. And neither does Group A. We are each of us a special blend of the two—a treacherous cocktail so equally capable of love and hate that any attempt to see which rules in our hearts from our earth-bound vantage point seems futile at best. It’s like trying to judge someone’s driving by looking at a snapshot of their car.

I am honestly ashamed that this truth has not yet sunk in—especially when all the evidence I could ever need beats in my own chest. Have I not embodied the “Unsafe” so well and so often that any fellow sorters must have me pegged there? How can I look down on others for speaking what flows so naturally from my own lips?

I can’t, of course. But I do. Every day. Every encounter. Every opportunity for my sorter to sort. How I wish I could send that sorter packing—or at least, force myself to realize that just as I sort others, so I will be sorted.

Please, Lord, forgive me for sorting.

The amount of worry that I can put into looking, acting, and living a certain way is truly dizzying.

It’s like spending twenty-four hours a day trying to wind the details of your life up into neat little skeins and arrange them on color-coded shelves (and convincing yourself that if just one of those skeins were to come unraveled, life would simply not be worth living) only to discover they are still a tangled mess of yarn on the floor—and what’s more, that these threads have been distracting you from what really mattered all along.

Sometimes I think that all of my anxiety in life can be traced back to that intense desire to be other than I am. Better, in the world’s eyes. Perfect, in my own. I know it’s wrong. But I also know I am not alone in this.

So, please—forgive everyone for not having their skeins neatly wound up and sorted. And even more, have mercy on those of us who are still trying to pretend that we do.

Both of my windows are looking out on gorgeous flowering trees right now. Despite the fact that it is bizarrely cold here, spring truly has arrived.

I am sorry for my absence. It turns out that life is not always easy to bottle up, classify, and set on a shelf for scrutinization. Because of this, and because said life has been incredibly busy, blogging of all kinds has had to take a back seat of late. But I am still here.