Broken and Shattered

Palace of Broken Dreams

As of today there are 6.77 billion people on this earth. At the earliest of ages, perhaps the age of accountablitity where we can decipher right from wrong, we disconnect from innocence and into another realm of conscience. For many of us, perhaps by chance, life will choose to pull us in directions that will ultimately shape the mold of who we become and how we face a very real world. Reality does not wait for us to be ready, and no amount of schooling can prepare the soul for the often bitter sting of the world and its relative truths.

There will certainly be those of us that live a percievingly charmed existence, and those of us who will not. Either one, regardless of how blatently clear they are to us, leaves more to be desired. It's the reason the millionaire athlete and the prostitute can both find themselves shivering alone in a drug induced state in a hotel room. It is the perception that you have it all, but even having it all leaves you with nothing. The world will find a way of revealing what is most valued to us, and then strip it away.

Even by the time we are young adults, we are scarred. Sexual abuse, domestic violence, emotional and physical abuse, all lead us down the same dark path. Even worse the wounds bleed more when we are hurt by those we trust willingly and love unconditionally. We learn we will always be let down, and we can trust no one...not even ourselves. And again, ironically even the successful lawyer and his beautiful family may eventually meet the shattered at the same crossroads. It's funny how lives in the now and here find a way to converge at a point of soul aching chaos. We are all broken from the "nevers and maybes", the "I love you's",and "I'll never love you's". We've walked away, been walked away from, and abandoned.

Many people don't know this, but I suffered from bulimia for nearly two years, but I was normal. At least I convinced myself I was despite the worries of my family and friends. I weighed 40 lbs less than I did in college,and I was never heavier than 173lbs then. I called it being "healthy","watching my weight", and believed it was a result of my new passion for running. I believed my own lies. Was it a subconcious issue of control, body image, or perhaps merely an exaggerated method of molding myself into some idealized version of me? People spend so much time trying to numb pain, with even more pain. They literally cut themselves deeper and deeper in order to feel something (anything), and to punish themselves for the mistakes in their life,often reagrdless of fault. Maybe it's so they can feel on the outside what they already feel on the inside. I believe it's the reason we drink until we can't feel a thing, use drugs to destroy the little of us that remains human, and desire to lose all control because to be in control leaves us accountable for our own actions. The reason we take pain killers is so we can live through the pain, but in reality the core of the pain (the injury) is still there and living through it without a true solution only makes it worse.

The burden of life is a heavy weight. Many people choose to not acknowledge it, but for those(like myself) who have a heightened emotional connection to the world around me, it is hard to not absorb the external forces that keep us from moving. A friend of mine shared with me a story of how 5 ton elephants are trained. They are first tied to an immovable object with a very thick chain that even they cannot break. Slowly, the massive elephant realizes that with all it's brute strength it can't break the chain. After enough time, the thick chain is replaced by a smaller one, then another,until finally only a small rope is keeping the elephant tied down. The creature, assumes by the feel, that he can still no longer break free, although he could easily do it. Now the master, a human of insignificant size compared to the elephant, can manipulate its direction with merely the slightest tug of a tiny rope.

I wonder how much freedom we would rejoice in if we actually knew our chains were nothing more than little strings. Our past, our "failed" dreams,and our damaged nature eats at the core of our soul until the mighty creature that once stood has been relegated to a lowly beast of burden. Yet we continue to stumble blindly through the darkness chasing shadows into deeper depths of sorrow and solitude. The needle holes, cutting scars, and bruises have tattooed themselves over the facade of a fractured being. Our skin, our outside, whether visibly damaged, or that of a supermodel often belies what is truly at the root of our identity. Are we not more than what we allow to cover us and permiate the very threads of our being?

You can clothe your brokeness and nakedness with pearls and Armani, but it's like fixing a leaking dam with duct tape. You can drown out the suffering and serve your penance, but self destruction is a cruel ghost, and it'll haunt you until you are fixed on the inside. The heart is the source of life, pumping blood the body, and when the heart shatters, everything else comes crashing down. The heart is a palace of broken dreams, and often pride and guilt prevent us from coming to a place of restoration and redemption.

"Behold, I make all things new"