It will be three years next week for me since BD. Some days it still feels like a bad dream, that I will awake and everything will be as it was…but it isn’t a dream. It’s my new reality; it’s the world that many of us must now face.
We all get broken in one way or another in this life. It’s an unavoidable part of living. My early days after BD were ones of numbness - the weight loss, the anxiety & devastation, the disbelief & tears. My world was broken into a million pieces scattered at my feet. We do; however, have a choice about how we handle those breaks. Sometimes we get stuck in the brokenness and never heal. Or we try to pretend the brokenness is not there, driving it into our shadow where we act it out toward others without knowing why.
And then there are the times, like these, when we are forced to do the hard work to not only heal the broken pieces, but to make ourselves stronger than we were before. It is then that our scars become beautiful in the way they allow us to bring healing to the world around us. I've had to pick up each one of those broken pieces of my life, exam it, assess it, clean it up, and put them back together to recreate a new life for myself.
The Japanese art of Kintsugi repairs broken pottery with seams of gold and is a fitting metaphor for this last way of dealing with the broken places that life gives all of us. Kintsugi repairs the brokenness in a way that makes the vessel even more beautiful and valuable than it was prior to being broken.
I believe what was once my brokenness has now become my strength, my uniqueness, and my value. I have learned resolve; I have learned to believe in myself; I have learned to forgive; but most of all I have learned how to be more loving and compassionate.
I wrote my own personal mission statement about who I am and how I wanted to like my life. I have reaffirmed who I am - I am someone who believes that there are two ways to accomplish a task - do it right the first time or do it again. I believe that you should never give up on your dreams. I believe that without risk, life is boring. I believe that we are each responsible for creating our own happiness and that happiness comes from within. And most importantly, I believe that someone's true character shows through in the face of adversity and difficult choices. I will not compromise my values nor blindly accept anyone into my life who is disloyal, spiteful or spiritually uncommitted. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The time is always right to do what is right.”
I wrote out my bucket list and posted it on line for the world to see (
www.buckelist.org). In the past three years, I have lived adventures and done things that I would have otherwise never done. Only the other day, I was reading about a how local entrepreneur has started a vacation/adventure company aimed at people looking to achieve their bucket dreams. He listed a number of adventures – bungee jumping at Victoria Fall, Africa; riding in a hot air balloon; white water rafting…check, check and check. I’ve accomplished all these and so much… but sometimes there is still something missing.
There remains a heap’n pile of hurt inside me. Some days, in the still of the silence, I still get down. Thinking about what was… the immense love I had for my W, the dreams we shared, the great times we had as a couple and as a family. I have spoken to many who tell me that the hurt never fully goes away. It may lessen in time but will always be there. But, I refuse to allow it to consume me. I’m still a work in progress but I strive to be the best person I can be. My goal is to live a charged life; one that allows me to let my heart sing and my soul soar. Maybe someday, I will get there.
On many long journeys have I gone. And waited, too, for others to return from journeys of their own. Some return; some are broken; some come back so different only their names remain.
YODA, Dark Rendezvous
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LBS STAGES