Tired of Being Broken.

I'm full of missing pieces
Windowpanes once whole now only shattered glass
Rebuilding seeming nearly impossible
Holes too big to fill in

I'm tired of being broken.
And I can write beautiful things that give heartbeat to ink
Leaving footprints on arteries and pages alike
About how broken is beautiful
And how you can only make a mosaic if you start with pieces
And that's still true.
I still believe that beauty can come from the pain inside

But I'm tired of being broken.

I'm tired of the way people look at you when you have missing pieces
So condescending, looking down their noses as though they are any better
Judgment blocking vision, the log obscuring the splinter
'Just pull yourself together!' 'Cheer up!' 'Smile like you mean it!'

Can't you see I'm trying?

All you see is the outside, though,
The parts that I'm choosing to let you see
But that's really not all of the story
There is hurt

Here

That you can't see

You can't see the day he put a hand to me
Or the day he screamed in my face.
You don't see the canyon that formed in my soul the day she said those things
Or the way the betrayal, betrayal, betrayal Ah.
Soaked in beneath my skin

Yours may be thick, but mine is not.

You can't see the struggle it takes for me to force my legs out from the covers
Every day, every day, every day,
The way food repulses after so long because calories equal fat cells
Right?
I kept it all to myself for a long, long, time.
I fought with no one helping me at all.
You didn't see that one either.

He betrayed me. Of all the people in the world, it wasn't supposed to be him.
But it was.

You can't see the way fear that stretched over years with no reprieve
Put a lot of wear on this heart of mine
Or the way that people only saw me when something went wrong.
You can't see the muddy footprints that I've traced a billion times each
Left by all of those people who just walked away

Why did they walk away? What did I do wrong?

You don't see the millions of stitch marks from where I've patched
The clumsily scotch-taped, elmer's glued, band-aid coated thing
Lying beneath my rib cage, aching with each measured pulse

You don't see that. You don't.

You just see the half-hearted smile
The thin line I put all of my effort into turning into crescent moon
Just so that you won't think I'm so empty
And most of the time, you believe me
Or at least pretend to so you don't have to ask questions
But you still see my eyes

Can't you see me screaming?

I'm tired of being broken
And I'm trying to move toward piecing this heart back together again
Sweeping shards of glass to be puzzle-pieced together
It just takes time, though.

It takes moment after moment,
Peeling back the temporarily fixed layers
Exposing the rawness of the ache that still exists
Yes, even after this long,
And it takes courage.

You can't see that either.

But just because you see it,
Doesn't mean it isn't real
Isn't true.

I'm full of missing pieces,
But I'm learning to fit together new ones
Learning to let the light in where holes still remain

Let this heartbeat flowing through my fingers
Match my pulse with yours

Take my hand
Brokenness transforming, finding how to be filled once again
Come, I'll show you
But you'll have to open your eyes, accept your place

Because with all the judgment clouding your lens to the world,

You can't see that.

-S.

I am not a writer.

I am not a writer.

But, I do long to reach deep into the chasm of my soul and grasp the tiny shards and bring them to life. I look hard for the pretty ones but sometimes, the sun shines best on the pieces with the exposed edges, the ones that I dread bringing forth. I want to hold your hand, I want you to understand that I care deeply, achingly for you. I crave for you to listen deep, listen wide, grasp tight to the hand that holds us both. Oh, my heart aches for you, my sweet one. For us. For you see, we do this together, this life. I shudder at the word. Excited nerves shiver down lengths of vertebrae, but also frightening black edges crowd in around the fireworks. The salty sweetness, the bitterness mixed with the depths of joy. The daisy petals and the crackling leaves. Oh, it's beautiful. The ocean full of experience and though we marvel, though we see at a distance, we long to be caught up in the waves.

There are so many things to say to you. So many words to link together and spin into beautiful gowns of sentences that take your breath away as they fall from lips like shooting stars. But oh how they stick. My gowns have missing stitches and holes and pieces of dust woven in. I apologize if it takes from the beauty of it all. My throat is full of ideas and thoughts and things you need to know and my fingers cannot find these keys fast enough. I want to tell you that you are brave and strong and beautiful and that there are galaxies inside of every inch of you and if you open your heart it is true that the love there will escape from you but it is through that hole that light will flood in and that love that you let go will find the crack that formed when her dad walked away when she was seven and though you don't even know her name you helped her on her journey. And if you let people, they can mend your cracks too. I want you to know that you are made of stars and the sea and that the nervous nail-biting four-year-old that lives in your heart is perfectly normal and acceptable and that as you grow older you merely gain numbers, not lose the previous ones. So really, you are 8 and 7 and 6 and 5 and 4 and 3 and 2 and 1 all wrapped up in 9. Like a tree you add layer after layer and some layers show storms and others show drought but goodness how beyond beautiful you are. Inhaling with arching spine, oak trunk withstanding the hurricane, holding safe memory and life. That's something that people forget to tell you. Four-year-old you will always exist and sometimes it is completely and totally fine to go visit them.

I want to sit across from you, coffee in hand, and tell you about mistakes and heartbreaks and broken promises and destroyed friendships and how time has a way of changing things but that doesn't make memories less beautiful, and if you let it, time will eventually change the pain too. I want to peel back the layers and show you that I understand your pain and though I cannot heal, I can hold, and if you let me I promise you I will hold on as tightly as you need me to. I want to tell you that it's completely okay to love him. Love him for as long and as deeply as you want to. This life is going to be what you make it and no one else can choose the steps that you will take. That can be terrifying and exhilarating. But trust me when I say that taking steps is worth it. Even the ones that lead you in a different direction than you had planned. Especially those. Take them and embrace them. Fling wide your arms and leap. Even if it is over a puddle. I want you to know that holding on is okay. Keeping things clenched tight in your fists is fine. This is the exact opposite of what you have heard your entire life and I am well aware but I want you to hear me out. I want you to relax in your comfy chair opposite mine with this fireplace between us and I want you to get lost in thought for a moment as you count the things you know you are holding on to. Keep them. Hold tight and squeeze until your knuckles are the color of the snow falling outside our window. Just know that it can't be a permanent situation. But trust your timing. When you are ready, you will release them. And often, you won't even remember doing so, and when you look back to find where you dropped it, the horizon will have swallowed it whole. Those are some of the most glorious moments. Don't forget to cherish those. Bask in those sunsets that throw beauty over things left behind, and look forward into the horizon of tomorrow's sunrise as you continue.

And you must continue. That is most important of all. You must keep going, stretching, growing, learning, moving. Never stop being excited by the things that surround you as you move through this glorious day. And then tomorrow, renew that excitement again. And again. And again. Let it be new. Let it be amazing. Let yourself bubble over with giddiness and dance around your kitchen making breakfast. Giggle, even when no one else is in the room to hear you. Play music and wear that perfume you've been saving. I want to tell you to look people in the face when you meet them. Let them see your smile, and always assure that your eyes hold tenderness. Be genuine. Cross your fingers for luck and wish on stars if that is what you want to do. Don't let anyone tell you that part of you, or any part of you for that matter, is wrong. When you are hurt, do not be afraid to let the tears spill over and do not hide. Take the hand that is offered to you. The human heart longs for goodness, and helping another is a joy you rob someone of every time you turn from them. Let them be a shoulder for the tears and deep, deep breaths. The time will come to pay that forward, and you will understand. Always seek advice from those around you, for everyone you will ever meet in your life will know something that you do not. Do not ever forget that, either.

When you get bored, draw a monster. Then ask yourself over and over, what makes this a monster? Find the monsters under your bed and in your closet and get to know them. Find out who they are and where they come from and one day, they may not seem quite so frightening. Make lists, make goals, and strive to be the person that you want to be. One inching step in the right direction is a thousand times better than a leap in the wrong one. I want you to take too many pictures and do the thing you have always longed to do. You will not regret that. But you may regret it if you do not. Chase your dreams and believe in yourself. Give yourself grace and grace and then, more grace. God does not withhold it so neither should you. Learn to be brave enough to start over. And over. And over. Make yourself, you were born to create.

I want to tell you so many things but if I have learned anything while I have been placing fingerprints on this planet it is this: that words fail. When the pain cuts deep and when the joy is overflowing, words fail. They fail over and over and over. But string them together anyway. String them together like clumsy toddler fingers and wooden beaded necklaces. Always place a knot between them because that way when something breaks, and it inevitably will, the whole thing doesn't unravel. String together those small moments and I promise you that it will overwhelm the bad things. Make that strand count for more than the bad things and take the day for what it is: the only guarantee you have. Treat it like it is your first, and your last. And then, my love, then you will experience life in an entirely new way.

I long to cup your sweet face in my hands and lean in close. Even if I say nothing else, if all you remember from our time together is one thing, I want to look in your eyes and tell you this: I want you to know that you are valued, wonderful, and entirely whole precisely as you are in this very second of time that we occupy together. Always be humble in gratitude and bless others by the armful. People are worth it, and no matter what happens, love will always win. Always.

For you, with all the love I can hold.
-S.

The best, and Grace for the rest.

"I'm just doing the best I can..."

Gracious, I've said that a lot lately.
I know, sweet girl. I know you are. I think most of the time, we all are. We're just doing the best that we can in that moment. I've learned that being alive and living are two very different things. And there's a small gap between the two that I often feel myself sticking in like my toe in the just slightly too wide gap of the concrete below my feet. Being alive is feeling like you are always on the wrong side of that sidewalk crack. Being alive is feeling as though you are not (insert adjective here) enough so you must keep pushing, pushing, pushing.  But please, dear one, listen to me and I need for you to listen to me and not just hear these words; please let this sink into the very deepest stitches of your heart and know this: you are enough. You are enough exactly in the space that you occupy in this moment. I know that it feels like you should be doing more, being more, acting more, and you're worried that you aren't but you feel like you're doing the best that you can... and that's because that's all you really can do, darling. Don't forget to give yourself some grace. You deserve it. You have done the best you can, be that creating a new chemical formula to help one eyed dogs or getting out of bed and making a piece of toast successfully, and if I could reach through this screen and squeeze you and give you a medal for doing just that I definitely would. Just look at you go. You're amazing.

Giving grace to myself has been a lesson that I have been humbly facing a lot lately. There have been some major mess-ups along the way, don't get me wrong. I've done some things I most certainly regret having done; I've been places I do not wish to go back to whatsoever. But, really, haven't we all? And when I last cracked open my Bible, it told me that Jesus came to save the broken. He came for those who were shattered into so many pieces they saw no point in hoping to ever be whole again. He came for the ones who feel like they are completely lost in a sea of things that don't make any sense at all. He came for the sick, the lost, the mocked, the helpless, the hopeless, the wronged and the wrongdoer. Jesus came for them, and he came for you. And me. And when I look into that, I really can't seem to see much else. I sit at the base of a mountain sculpted in grace just waiting for me to ask for a pebble sized bit to cover what I've done, where I've been, who I am. And so many times, I choose to try and walk away from it. I choose to wallow in the valley of hopelessness when the peaks of grace are literally sitting in rings around me. But I'm too busy trying to grow a flower with the salt-water falling from my eyes. If I would just look up. Come, love. Come and just. look. up.

Take a step back from where you are at today. Look up from the ground below you and see the dazzling beauty waiting just ahead. Focus on your image, the one traced with the fingerprints of a God who never leaves you, and take look in the mirror and give yourself the grace that He is longing to lavish on you. He knows that you're broken and messy and feel useless. But he sees the masterpiece hiding inside the mess. Let him hold you; let him show you what He has for you.

"I'm just doing the best I can..."

He knows, dear one. He knows and he could not be prouder of you. And neither could I.

Holding you close. 

-S.