4.4.23 // I am Fragile

I am fragile.
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Like a piece of fine china that breaks when it slips between your fingers and hits the floor, scattering large and small pieces of color and glass…
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Like the way a child is fragile with a new-to-the-world brilliance, needing guidance, needing love, needing protection.
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I think it’s a myth that we ever grow out of the fragility, that we ever stop needing to be seen, held, and fiercely protected.
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But when we grow up we pretend like we’re strong-  made of durable metal, not fragile glass.
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We go around flaunting our strength, our flaunting becoming a safety blanket. An opportunity to hide the delicate glass beneath layer after layer of false padding, soft blanket after soft blanket. We keep our soft, breakable truth hidden. Until...
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...until crossing paths with someone who tells you they want to see your sweet truth and vulnerable glass.
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So you let them under your security blankets, you take away your padding, and show them how fragile you are while gently placing the heart-shaped fine china in their hands…
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You trust.
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And then they smash it, maybe not intentionally but they do, they cast your fragile pieces to the ground without a notice that you’re broken.
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They look at you like somehow you did something wrong and that their breach of trust was your fault. But it never was. You were brave. Even in your most fragile moments, you were brave.
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You dared to show a part most don’t see and won't choose to share.
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You mourn, grieve, and you put yourself back together which is a harrowing process. Slowly, painstakingly, you lift the pieces from the ground and place them together with bloody fingers mixing messily with the glue. The newly glued structure becomes something else entirely new, a reflection you may not recognize, but the new reality of your existence. A sturdier version, a reflection of the illusion of "strength" you played now shows through and what you pretended to becomes what you are.
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But could that have been avoided? What if we just admitted that we were fragile? Maybe we are meant to break so we can mend and change into something new...