Everyone is broken. Each of us has been shattered by life in some way or another, crushed or wounded beyond repair. A part of me is comforted by the broken parts in others. Somehow it helps to know that I'm not the only one, and I guess looking for those broken parts in others has become automatic for me. Rarely do I come across exceptions, and it's difficult to trust that it's not there in some people.
There is one couple whose broken spots I still haven't located. I've known my boss and his wife for more than eight years, for example, and they still seem complete in a way that others are not. I've seen them stressed and angry and I've seen them bicker, but they work it all out. Their lives are what normal should be. They're more normal than normal -- they're beyond normal, super-normal, perhaps. They're both funny and popular and they always turn the things they say into the right things, even when they're not. Their lives seem touched by fortune and untouched by whatever it is that breaks the rest of us. They don't let the world bother them too much. I must be missing something, though, even after all this time. I mean, is it possible for anyone to pretend that well, and for that long?
Being broken isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's just that I sometimes find myself wishing I were whole. The scars aren't what make us incomplete; it's the broken parts, the gaps and poorly glued-back-together pieces that ruin us. To be whole, I would have had to withstand the crushing forces, to beat them or, at the least, not surrender to them. I don't want to be fragmented. I want the choices I face to be clear. I want my intentions to be focused. I don't want to waver or hesitate at the precipices inside my broken self.
See, to be whole isn't to have it easier; it's to have certainty about who you are. With certainty comes a kind of power and freedom: The kind of power that allows you to be deliberate without faking it, and the kind of freedom that protects you from all of the wondering and questioning about potentials.
I imagine how much more straightforward life would be if I were whole. And then I wish there were a way to repair myself.
7 comments:
Erving Goffman, the famous sociologist believed (I am simplifying things a lot) that if you pretended to be something for a long enough time you eventually became that something. So perhaps in that frame work if you pretended to be whole and integrated for a long enough time you would find that you had become that person you seek to be.
No one knows what goes on behind closed doors. The more 'perfect' people are - the less you really know them at all. The more 'flaws' a person allows to show- THEY are revealing who they really are.
sometimes I visit Loofa...
I have no idea why....
The more broken pieces the more human we are. If not for those broken pieces and scars you wouldn't be the wonderful person you are.
Laoch, that could explain my boss and his wife, but I suspect it's not true. I think someone once said: The only way to be what you want is to start wanting what you are.
Jade, I agree. It's difficult to trust people who are apparently perfect. Also, I think I know why you miss Loofa -- maybe because he was sometimes more personal?
K, thanks for saying so! I guess I sometimes wish to be something other than human. :-)
I think it's more about how there were these two fools who became friends,then left that life behind...
But still haven't quite figured out what to do or where to go next...you know?
Jade, ah, yes, but believe me, we're both still on that journey of figuring out what's next. At least we've moved forward, though.
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