Last week I read a dk diary that spoke to me very deeply.
i shared it with a few friends, some of whom became distressed that I was identifying with that level of brokenness.
All the broken people, where do we all belong?
Welcome, fellow travelers on the grief journey
and a special welcome to anyone new to The Grieving Room.
We meet every Monday evening.
Whether your loss is recent, or many years ago;
whether you've lost a person, or a pet;
or even if the person you're "mourning" is still alive,
("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time),
you can come to this diary and say whatever you need to say.
We can't solve each other's problems,
but we can be a sounding board and a place of connection.
Unlike a private journal
here, you know: your words are read by people who
have been through their own hell.
There's no need to pretty it up or tone it down..
It just is.
I felt broken even before my mother died, but her death broke me in different ways. Having her companionship and daily words of affection, and then losing it, was a much harder adjustment after all the years I managed to get by without having it at all.
The intervening years since she died have merged seamlessly into the continuing lifetime struggle of coping with that broken feeling, and apparently coping so well that most people who know me casually would never imagine that I walk around feeling like a bag of broken glass.
bluebird of happiness wrote something that touched a lot of people. A lot of the comments in that diary were very comforting. Others, including me, posted that they had felt the same way and were glad to know they were not alone.
And yet the best part of the diary was where she said that maybe we just learn to live with being broken.
Hemingway famously said: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places." The rest of the quote is much more pessimistic, but that first line still has the ring of truth. Maybe being broken is natural. And maybe being unbroken keeps you from understanding the reality that all the broken people walk around with every day.
The new level of brokenness I struggled with after my mother's death forced me to reach out for help, something that I found (and still find) very difficult to do. It forced me to re-evaluate people whom I had not considered possible sources of help in the past. It drew me closer to family members who had only been on the fringes of my life before. And although it is still not easy to ask for help, every time I do manage to do it I feel a tiny surge of victory. As if I am working with what I have and not letting my limitations stop me or hold me back.
All the broken people, where do we all belong?
We belong here, here at dKos, here in the community diaries, and here in The Grieving Room on Monday nights. We belong here, supporting each other as best as we are able, even if we do nothing more than rec a comment or type out a cyberhug or lurk and send a sympathetic thought or prayer across the interwebs. Daring to offer a cry for help, daring to be vulnerable, reaching out for connection, even if it is virtual connection, may make it easier to reach out for connection and help in the real world, and even to find it someday. What we do here, what we write here, what we share here--they are signs of hope.
And in a spiritual sense there is a way of being broken that means broken open and receptive, open to experience fresh insights, open to a newness of something i know not what. Open to reality, not hiding behind the hard shell of self-protection and guardedness that keeps people from coming too close.
So I want to take this broken feeling and choose to see it in a way that does not mean a sad end to my story. Perhaps, though feeling broken, I can still affirm that my life goes on and I still have options and opportunities.
Perhaps I can learn to take my broken pieces and dance in the wind like a mobile...