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Cracked
What happened after I figured out that life is broken? I don’t mean that point when I felt something break. I mean the point when I realized that parts of it have been and will always be broken. Wow… this post might be a little darker than the others, but let’s see where it goes.
I started figuring this out in late 2021 when my life began to shift. I knew without needing to look back that I finally understood that I can live an amazing life. This only happened because I finally really saw the cracks. Sometimes, probably most of the time, it’s in the breaks that we find what we couldn’t see. When I find courage not in spite of what is broken, but because it’s broken.
There was a moment with my Mom in 2022 when I first talked about seeing the broken parts of life. I said to her that even though I was fully aware of the issues in our family, I knew that those issues didn’t have to be my issues. That’s only because I was now fully aware that those issues were there. Life was and had been broken in front of me. Through those cracks I found my awesome.
“Seeing all of the cracks helps me understand all of the sweetest parts. They are the miraculous parts that sit right beside the broken ones, and by seeing both of them I found freedom.”
I mentioned in prior posts (over and over 😊) that I made some choices in 2021 that started a shift in my life. By making those choices I was also accepting the broken parts that had always been there. Choices after these were much easier because I owned them. I no longer avoided making them. The broken parts didn’t scare me away anymore. Seeing all of the cracks helps me understand all of the sweetest parts. They are the miraculous parts that sit right beside the broken ones, and by seeing both of them I found freedom.
Maybe needing to be free is how I realized that seeing the broken in life lets me appreciate what I have. I can feel joy because I know pain. I think this is true, but knowing life is broken means even more than that. It means that I can stand beside someone who is in pain and not feel it for them or even through them, but I can feel it through me. Yes, I know. I just said that I’m being selfish with someone else’s pain. Please stay with me, though.
How can I really feel their pain? I’m not sure that I ever can. That’s why knowing life is broken is necessary. I can help them because I know that their pain is not about me, but I can still empathize. All lives have cracks. I can still be there to feel with them because I see those cracks. That’s how, ironically, the pain they feel has meaning for me.
I’m not saying that I walk around with a clear understanding of hurt that is about me and hurt that is not. But, I do understand much more clearly that other people’s hurt is not usually about me at all even if I get hurt because of it. How can I learn how to be kind if I think the pain in front of me is always about me? When I can’t be enough for someone because of a painful life they bring with them that is lacking what they need, I have to realize that their pain will stand in the way. If I think I can fix it, their pain will keep hurting me too. Even when it can hurt me, the pain other people carry is theirs. It didn’t start as something meant to cause me pain.
When a relationship ends or becomes fragile, what has happened to the foundation? When two lives come together where there are broken parts, and I believe there always are, the broken parts have to be part of the whole of those two people. If those parts can’t be part of this whole, the relationship will crumble. I learned that I cannot have a meaningful existence in spite of the broken. If it’s ignored, the cracks will eventually break that existence apart. So, I broke free instead of crumbling. I’m taking all of the cracks with me.
Broken and Beautiful
“Pain, I understand now, can stop all change and movement in life, so I’ve learned to keep moving. Not running away, just letting it move with me until it is through.”
I’m learning how to have empathy by living with what is broken. I can walk beside people I love who are in pain. I can’t make that pain go away, but I can be there. I can also see choices more clearly when I know there is pain in front of me and that everyone carries some. I don’t have to be absorbed by it.
When someone is in pain and they believe I can or should take it away or that I need to join them in it instead of supporting them, there is a choice to make. I can find grace in me to build that support. If I can’t find it, I need to face that I can’t be with them. Pain, I understand now, can stop all change and movement in life, so I’ve learned to keep moving. Not running away, just letting it move with me until it is through. If someone chooses to stay stuck in the pain, the choice for me is easy. I won’t be stuck, too.
Life will bring pain no matter how much I hope it won’t. I have and will experience it many times throughout my life. But, by acknowledging it as part of the brokenness of living, it will pass through. It doesn’t get to stay. It comes in, it cracks, I push, and it leaves me with a new and beautiful view. Like it wasn’t really ever broken at all…
Walk with Me Awhile!
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