Scattered Pieces

The rain falls.  Solemnly making its way to the ground.  It parallels my mood.

My home no longer feels like home.  The streets that I've known for years now ache with an alien quality they didn't used to possess.  The places I frequent reek of unfamiliarity and strangeness.

I feel lost.

My sweet friend called to check on me and left me with these wise words...I now have to find another anchor.

My parents have been my anchor for years.  Unbeknownst to me, the weight of who I was depended on where they were.  I had purpose and meaning.  I never questioned what my holidays would look like because it would be with them.  My days were filled with small conversations about daily life that confirmed I was loved and cared for.  You could find me most mornings at their breakfast table.  My singleness was softened by their presence in my life.  My boys' lives were fuller.  The trauma of the divorce was lessened.

My boys and I had our first official dinner at our new kitchen table.  Just the three of us.  In that moment, I realized that we were it.  This small gathering of three people was the family we now had left.

My life is not at all the way I pictured it when I was younger.  I imagined growing old with the same person.  I imagined a house full of love, activity, loving arguments, messes, food, board games, books.  I imagined having a constant partner in crime who knew me intimately and loved me intensely.  I imagined being known.  And loved in spite of.

Now life seems like a never ending audition for intimacy.  First dates run rampant, myself revealed in small portions, scattered in multiple directions.  Fragments of who I am that make a complete picture if put all together.

But no one person holds all the pieces.

One of my favorite movies is "Split" by M. Night Shyamalan.  The movie is about a man who has split personalities.  One of his personalities is a beast.

The Beast: We are glorious! We will no longer be afraid. Only through pain can you achieve your greatness! The impure are the untouched, the unburned, the unslain. Those who have not been torn have no value in themselves and no place in this world! They are asleep! 

... The broken are the more evolved...

If pain is the catalyst that spurs you to greatness, surely there is something great in store for me.  Me and all my broken, scattered pieces.  Now without an anchor.