I am a Beautifully Broken Woman

The word kintsukuroi came up in a conversation I was having with my dear friend Janeen recently. Kintsukuroi is the Japanese art of repaired pottery, but it is repaired with gold or silver lacquer, making the piece more valuable to have been broken.

It made me think of my own beautiful broken beginning in life. And what is means to come from beautifully broken people.

What is it to love the children you created and yet be too broken to deeply show it? Eyes full of their own sorrow, searching for some chance to be a part of the world in which they can speak their honesty?

Is it like a movie, where the characters are in a long hallway but cannot make it to door, the door which is the gateway to the light? Is this where the hallway grows too long, forces unseen, keeping them from the light? Do the characters give up or save themselves and their family from the darkness of pain? Do we all live in that hallway at some point in our life? Why do we hold in or hide our pain? Do we think it shows our greatest weakness? Doesn’t it instead show our capacity to love and survive? Doesn’t it instead show our courage to get up and start again?

I have loving parents, who tried to be the best parents they could. Both with deeply broken hearts, guilt and shame in suitcases they packed from their childhood souls. They lived in that hallway. Even as a child, I could see the sadness behind their eyes. So burdened by their own sorrow and pain. Too burdened to be present. Too burdened to be sober. Too burdened to nurture. I know that is not what they wanted. And I know they must have held excruciating pain in their hearts. I love them even now more than ever, as an adult, as a parent, working so hard to unpack my own baggage.

Life is full of doors that we must walk through, full of fabric that we must weave and full of pain, sorrow, love and joy that we must feel and live through. Live through it, to make it out the other side, hoping that the baggage we packed is light. Hoping that the baggage is more full of wisdom and love than guilt and shame. With each door, we walk through, we become more the sage. With each door, we aspire to unpack our bags a bit more and lighten our load.

Our parents were supposed to be better than their parents. I am supposed to be better than mine. My children are already better than I. You grow new lenses when you become an adult and walk in those adult shoes for a while.

I love my parents for their authentic selves. For the beautifully broken people that they are and what they have survived. I honor them because I am beautifully broken too. I am eternally grateful that I chose this life to be born into. My soul being chose my parents…to exactly become the woman I am today. Beautifully broken, remade whole by the glue of love, wisdom and grace.

This journey of my life, has given me wisdom to appreciate and live through each beautiful day. See the peace, compassion, abundance and grace given to me. This journey was what I chose as my soul being and I am living the hell out of it. Blessings,

Rena