I used to believe that I was defective, incapable of
obtaining and keeping the same things that supposedly normal people liked to flaunt
as though that was the definition of success. By all measurements to western
society… I was a failure… broken marriage, broken mind, struggling finances, lack
of motivation at times, and a death wish.
Broken.
It’s such a powerful word with a strong sense of permanence.
If something is broken, it might get fixed, but it will never be good, whole,
or worthy of feeling new; and that was how I felt. Even when life began to make
sense again, when God provided, my marriage flourished, our kids grew strong
and healthy, and my mind became more stable; I kept this image of broken in my
head – I might be glued together for now, but how long would that glue hold
strong?
As a result of this fear in me that the fix was only
temporary, I learned to hang on to things that mattered to me. I learned to
manipulate situations and I learned to fight dirty. I became the angry, bitter
woman that lived inside my heart, always fearing the worst and always waiting
for disaster to strike. I acted on impulses and emotions, on feelings of
justified anger and deserved pain. I loved my family, but anybody else who threatened to
break any piece of my already broken life apart was destroyed in my rage…
relationships trampled on, people pushed away and broken down, things left
behind and ruined.
Over the years, life continued on. Cycles repeated. Treatment ensued. Problems were either worked on, or set aside to be worked on at an appropriate time. Sometimes I fell down along the pathway to recovery, the puzzle that I had been working to piece together for my life shattering as I fell backwards. It was a fragile thing. This thought, this stubborn belief that develops in life that convinced me that broken is bad.
I didn’t realise that the worst was yet to come.
In just over a month it will be three years since I hit a
major turning point in my life. November 6, 2014 I tried to take my own life,
and in reality, I should have died that day. On that cold and rainy Thursday
morning, I felt the most broken that I ever had, and while it was neither my
first nor my last suicidal day, it was the day that I truly began to look into
the mirror and see the brokenness displayed.
I was broken.
Today, I woke up after a hard and messy day yesterday that
bled into a hard and messy morning this morning, and the only word that I could
think of was broken. I felt that familiar pang – the reminder that no matter
how much work I do, or how far up the path I go, I will always slide backwards,
the puzzle will never be solved… I will never be whole.
I felt that familiar nagging, the one that’s always in the
back of my head, the one that’s asking me to let go of the hard work and the
recovery and make poor choices, the one that wants me to sabotage not only
myself, but those who try to intervene. I felt it and I began to embrace it.
And then I looked at the jigsaw puzzle my mom gave me for my
birthday last week. I looked at the bottle of puzzle glue sitting on top of the
box and I envisioned my spirit, mind, and body as a puzzle – pieces scattered
everyone. I pictured myself putting the pieces carefully together and building
a stronger me – one that won’t bend or break or fall, loading the glue on in
layers to prevent cracking or breaking ever again. I pictured my soul as a complete
picture, everything in line and making sense… everything normal. And then I
framed this puzzle in my head, a beautiful wooden frame with a piece of glass
keeping it together. The image worked. It made sense, everything added up and
in line.
And then I pictured the future. I saw a new piece coming
into my life and wondered where it would go if I already had everything
together, clear cut and organised. How could I add new experiences on, new
knowledge, work, recovery, new friends, or even life events when I had already completed the
puzzle? I couldn’t.
And then in my head, I saw the puzzle fall to the floor,
breaking apart and ready to be built again, ready to add in the newly
discovered pieces. As the pieces scattered all around me, they suddenly took on
new meaning, new life as I put them together on a different angle, took out some
of the stuff holding me down, and put in the new pieces that I’ve picked up
along the journey. As I did it, a new picture began to emerge... a new vision of whole, complete and normal.
Today I feel broken.
But it isn’t that I feel unworthy, ugly, scarred, or
useless. Today I feel broken because today I am learning new things and adding
new experiences into my puzzle. I am learning from the past, and l am looking
to the future, unsure of what may come, but ready to build and add and
discover. New relationships are being forged daily and old relationships being repaired or let go... new life events, new mistakes, new beginnings... new puzzle.
Today, broken is not a permanent feeling – it is not a
failing to succeed or hold it all together or to always make the right
decisions. Today, broken is my strength. Today, broken is beautiful.
