SHARDS

Staring at the nearly triangular piece of glass gripped tightly by my hand, I wondered if, while shattering to pieces, the mirror intended to create symmetrical fragments. Shaking my head, I kept it back on the dressing table. Nothing, no one, ever breaks, knowing when and how it would break. I gazed down at it, strands of my hair dangling too close to my eyes. I pushed them behind my ear and continued to look at my reflection. It was incomplete. My neck was cut off, right where the chain of my necklace, a gift from Father, glistened against my skin.

It took me a great deal of time and patience, most effort directed towards not cutting myself against the sharp edges of the parts, to glue everything back to the way it was before I had thrown a vase at it. I set the bottle of adhesive on the bed and took three steps back. I could see myself, now, my entire self. I couldn’t heal the cracks, and I smiled at the way the girl, who met my eyes, looked as broken as I felt. At least she was whole, in a unique way.

As a young girl, I used to be terrified of the heartbreaks I read about in books and witnessed in movies. Every time the protagonist said, “I love you, but” I physically felt pain in my chest. No one likes broken things, and I believed, or was led to believe, that a broken soul, damaged inside and out, could never be loved or love, again. How is one supposed to go through it all again, to open oneself to the vulnerability that hurt them in the first place?

I am not one to deny that never having fallen to the ground is always better than experiencing it. An unfulfilled, somewhat incomplete person could never really hold a candle to the individual whose wounds were too shallow to leave a mark. But I wonder, now that I have seen some of the world, why we were told to accept that being blown off into shards of being was the end, with no chance of being a more resilient version of who we were before?

This perspective towards trauma, pain, a dark past, gives us the impression that it is not even worth trying, the act of being back on our feet, that the struggle is not commensurate with the end result. So, is that it, then? Is it okay, to remain a part of who we used to be, and accept that as reality?

I cannot bring myself to agree, anymore. I might get beaten up, thrashed, and disposed off to live a life that isn’t resembling one at all, but I am not giving up. I know what the most obvious reaction to this argument is: what sort of person would want to continue without being completely healed?

You are right, no one likes looking at themselves in a mirror that dons a silvery web of fissures all across itself, but would you really rather use one that doesn’t show your true self, at all? So, what, if your reflection isn’t a perfect picture? At least you can regard yourself, fully, and not have to twist and turn a triangular shard in your hand, cut yourself at its edges, just to understand who you truly are.

That is the truth, as I see it. I would much rather glue back together the pieces of me spread all over and learn to live and accept the absence of missing slivers, than hold onto one shard that bleeds me into misery.