Tonight, I spilled gas on the crotch of my pants at a nearly empty gas station, went to an almost closed down Arby's on the other side of town for a single item at 11:30 p.m., left there with two free large shakes in flavors that I don't even like, and I captured the entire ordeal on Snapchat with intermingled shots of me completely losing it. In essence, I am a total mess, but I am here today to tell you that that is completely okay.
Let me start by defining a mess. One scholar on the renowned Urban Dictionary defines mess as "a person whose life has fallen into despair." I find this to be a fairly accurate depiction of the term. Many people also associate being a "mess" with a long night of alcoholic beverages, which can also be deemed accurate in some situations. In my mind, I would define a mess as somebody who gets into situations like the one I described above. While this can be a short-term thing, to those of you who are long-term messes, I understand you!
Every friend group has "that one friend" and I accepted long ago that that would be me. Something in my life always seems to be in shambles and I always have to rely on my friends to pick up the pieces. That's just fine, though, because my friends always know that when it's them in my position, I will be there with the duct tape and ice cream to put them back together.
I felt the need to speak out as a "mess" advocate because the term seems to have such a negative connotation. Honestly, it is not that bad to be one, as long as you always have good friends around to help you out. "Falling into despair" will never seem as gruesome with somebody waiting there for you with cookie dough and a good shoulder to cry on.
Being a mess is the new black; everybody's doing it. If you feel that you may be the only one, that is so far from the truth. If you take only one thing away from this article, let it be that everybody is a mess at some point in their life and that is just fine. If you need to cry in the middle of a Walmart parking lot while blasting "Everybody Hurts" and stuffing your face with really bad pizza because you got a C on a paper in your "easy" class, you be you. There is no shame because we have all been there.
