BROKEN IS WHERE...

Broken hurts.
It is full of rocks and nails and glass where you can hardly move without your wounds being reopened by something, bringing all the pain back up to the surface where it breaks you again and again.

But broken is also where the healing begins. 
Broken is where you strip away everything that you thought you were, where you find out who you really are.
Broken is where you find out what's really important to you, what you truly need and what you really want.
Broken is where you learn about strength and courage, forgiveness and compassion.

Broken is where you begin again.
Broken is where you become a new you.
And sometimes you find that the broken place was really a healing place.

THURSDAY TALES: THE GATES

I stood at the gates and peered in.  Dark and foggy, the path stretched on into the morning. But, there was nothing that would tell me what would lay down it.

An archway stood above me, its stone marble both smooth and yet cracked with age.  The words carved into it were simple and straightforward.

"Come. Your way is here."

Was that a message to me? Or was it simply what it said to everyone who passed this way? An invitation to peace or peril? I didn't know.

But I looked behind me along the path that had brought me here, its twists and turns already overgrown with brambles. I knew that I could never go back. I knew that going back was closed.

Here, as in all life, I suppose...  here, the only way was forward and to face what waited down the road with what courage I could find.  So I stood tall, shook my hair back from my face, and approached the gates. I stepped into the story of what was yet unwritten.

Just inside, a small fox approached me. I watched him with trepidation, ready to swing the nearest stick at him if he attacked.  But, he simply sat in the middle of the path, nodded his head at me, and said simply, "You came. Thank you."

And so the story began.

I MISS YOU

So I miss you. I can admit that.

I miss the friends that we were and the camaraderie we shared. I miss how we used to have each other's backs and protect each other's hearts. I miss that. I miss you.

But, a lot's happened. Valleys and gulfs between us, pushing each other away. Terrible words said.

It's not even just that. We're different people now, and the things that made us friends before... maybe we just don't have those things anymore. I've changed in some ways, you've changed in other ways... and neither of those ways are bad things, but they put us in places where probably friends are not something we'll be again.

I guess that's okay. I'm okay with that. Our lives are what they are, we are who we are. And I think it's okay to move on in our lives, but still occasionally think of the ones who were a part of our pasts. You are a part of me, a part of who I am now. So today, I will think of you, and hope good things for you, and yes.. I will miss you.

THURSDAY TALES: THIS IS VALENTINE'S DAY

This is Valentine's Day.  Or 4 am during the night that follows it. Right now, I should be upstairs, wrapped in his arms and cradled against his chest.

But I'm not.

I'm on a bench across the street from our apartment. A suitcase rests beside me on the ground. I'm waiting for a cab that still hasn't come. I'd call again, but I don't really want to go.

It's raining.  I'm still wearing the dress I bought for tonight, for our night out. The night we never even made it to before we started fighting.  And fighting. And fighting.

I don't even feel the rain now.

It's Valentine's Day. It wasn't supposed to end this way.

A light flicks on in our bedroom and I can see his form wander from our room to the kitchen. I can't see him now but I imagine him opening the refrigerator, pouring himself a drink, and padding back to our bed.  He stops in the living room and glances out the window.

I don't think he sees me.

I'm wrong.

The door to our building opens and he jogs across the street in pajamas and slippers. I don't stand up.

"What are you doing out here?" he asks me.

"No one came," I answer simply.

He shifts from one foot to the other, uncomfortable. "Do you want me to call again?"

I shake my head. "No. No, I'm fine here."

"You're soaking wet," he begins to argue with me.

But I just shake my head again. "It doesn't matter."

"You're crazy," he mutters.

I just shrug and look at the ground with a frown. "I know.  I'm sorry."

He pulls me to my feet and wipes the water away from my lips with the pad of his thumb. "Don't be," he whispers. "I love your crazy."

And he kisses me.

And he picks up my suitcase. And he picks up me. And we go back inside. And I sleep in our bed, cuddled against his chest.

And the cab never comes.

And this is Valentine's Day.

THURSDAY TALES: AT YOUR FEET

How did you make it past my defenses? I really thought that I had built them too high for anyone to climb over. That I was impenetrable.

and yet here I am, lying at your feet.

I feel tricked, misled, taken advantage of. I trusted you, but this brokenness is all you have left me with.

just broken

And I don't know where to go from here. I don't know how to heal the damage you caused. I don't know if I can learn to trust again.  Not just you... but anyone. How can I trust anyone when my judgment has proved to be so poor?

What I want is to be reborn and to build walls even higher. If you could scale them, someone else could, too.  But... higher is just a bigger challenge for the next one, isn't it? And it may be higher, but I've learned that, no matter the height, the walls are never unscalable. There will always be someone, with enough motivation or desire or, yes, capacity for cruelty, who can top them. And then where are we left?

And so, I am lying here on what remains of our battlefield and pondering... where do I go from here? Is there such a thing as enough protection to stop this from ever happening again?

Or am I simply left forever, lying at your feet, craving something that I don't have a name for.. but only a desperate longing for something else.