What a Beautiful Thing to Shatter

There was a time when my heart was so broken that my body crumbled under the weight of all those shattered pieces.

Hope planted disgust in my soul, and grief sunk her claws into my skin.

I stumbled into a hole and floated away inside myself.

Somehow I stayed upright, for I had no other choice. There were 3 precious sets of eyes watching me, depending on me alone.

But one night the pain was too heavy and the grief was too big to hold inside. Like a ghost, I snuck quietly off so that my children would not see me fall apart. I collapsed on a dirty garage floor as my world shattered and every dream I had allowed to hope for my babies and myself crashed down on me like a giant lie. The pain so intense I couldn’t breathe.

And there, in a big broken pile of humanness, my oldest found me, and no matter how hard I tried, I could not get back up.

I had already picked myself up one too many times. My body gently whispered “this one is too big, sweet one. You can’t carry the world anymore.”

And so I laid on a cold, hard, concrete floor, until somehow, I pulled myself back to standing.

Because that is exactly what Kalan knows how to do well. Stand back up.

I found a therapist the next day, because my kids deserved to have me whole, and I finally allowed myself to cry. For the first time in over a decade, my body finally let it all go. I learned the hard lesson that tears heal and weeping can be a lovely song to dance to. I became comfortable with the taste of warm saltwater falling on my tongue.

In a way, these war torn tears are the loveliest part of me, for the story they tell is fierce.

What a beautiful thing to shatter.

These days, tears do not find me often, but when they do I welcome them with gentle arms and kind eyes for I know they are simply the body’s way of healing a soul that needs tending to. A soul that is worth tending to. A body that is worth fighting for.

For this body is beautiful in her falling and rising. This body now smiles in the sun knowing her strength and worth. For this body has born life to 3 beautiful humans; it has protected and raised those 3 humans alone; it has waged war against crushed hope over and over; it has lost

itself to grief and found her way back to whole. Over and over again.

So in the heat of a brutal summer, I sit quietly after yoga and smile with my whole being. I let that beautiful, bright light dance on my skin, and I love all the broken pieces of me put back together again.

And I know what a lovely gift it is to have shattered.

~Kalan