Shards of a Broken Life

Here's an eternally sad thought: We are all broken.



We all carry with us the scars of a thousand offenses in everyday life. Every day we gather a few more. Like a glass ballerina forever dancing in the rain and wind, the world takes it's toll on us until we shatter. And every day we get up and endure more and cling to the old damages we have suffered. Our minds are as fragile as any window pane.



There are so many ways to hurt a child. Not just physical abuse, it's almost absurd how the smallest scratches just seem to grow and gather pain. A joke told and taken the wrong way, an unnoticed favoritism for a sibling, and a broken promise can all be as damaging as any gunshot.



I don't know that it's possible to raise a child and do everything perfectly. There will always be things that child feels weren't provided and times where he will resent his parents. There will be times when everyone feels infinately weak and broken. Life will kill a person if he's not careful. But rarely have I seen anyone acknowledge this. Life is hard and unfair and unpredictable but most everyone puts up with it anyway.



The biggest misconception that I have seen in my life and the lives of those around me is that "everyone else" seems to have the answers. What I know is that I have no real answers. I don't know anyone that always feels like they know what to do with every situation. It's a mistake to believe that there's a magic number in age, that when someone reaches a certain point they'll just know what it takes to be everything a good person should be.



Everyone is broken in the way of these sometimes insignificant ways. Everyone seems to hurt at one time or another. We all just bottle it up and no one wants to talk about it until they have a nervous breakdown. If we're luck and we learn from our mistakes we can probably have the answers most of the time but there'll still be a big chunk that we'll be clueless about what to do.

What do you do when the person you've been married to for fifteen years decides they want a divorce? What do you do when you're kid that you loved and tried to teach right from wrong goes into a school and shoots up his friends? What do you do when your sister loves a man that beats her? What do you do when your father tells you you're worthless? What do you do when your mother has a bad drug habit?

As you walk in the mall, the streets, in your work area there are people seconds away from a breakdown. There are people everywhere askin' themselves these questions. We must keep that in mind for two purposes.

The first is to show them the sympathy they need. No matter what the situation is, or what background we have, we all carry pain with us. We are all broken and in need of love. Bad days comes from breakin', good days come from healin'.

The second is to heal ourselves. We can't always have that mask that covers our true feelings. We can't always hide from our pain. And we shouldn't have to. I'm not one to go around cryin' to everyone but I can't stop hurtin' by bottlin' it up. I've opened up enough to enough people and vice-versa so I know the world is with me and I'm with it in knowin' pain.

We are all broken in one way or another. I think every life will have it's own pains and misery. No need in pushin' anybody to break if we can help it.