Taped, Glued, Smushed, But Whole

SOUL

If you could cut open your soul, like a nice, neat cross-section from science class, what would you find?  Nice, neat, ordered layers?  Like the rings of a tree, maybe?  Layer of experience upon experience, all smushed up, adding to your self?  I wonder what mine would look like.  I am sure I can wager a guess, and I am nothing like the beautifully scientific section of tree.

I am taped, glued, smushed, squished, cracked, brick and mortar, stone upon jagged stone, broken and rebuilt, over and over again.  If you could open up my soul and see a perfect cross-section, I think you would see a hot mess.  Listen, human life is nothing but orderly.  We try so hard to make sense of our world and put things into their neat and tidy places, but the truth of the matter is, we are all so broken and smashed and strung back together when it comes to the deep down. 

Does this patchwork soul make us any less?  Fuck no.  We are the sum of all our crazy parts, and that is what really makes us whole.  We are not neat and tidy.  We are mess and chaos.  We are happiness, sadness, heartache, heartbreak, joy, elation, love and hate.  We are all of it, all at once. 

Every person that comes into our lives can leave an impression.  Maybe they are a bit of tape or glue.  Maybe they are a crack.  Maybe they are a speck of dust.  Every loss we suffer, every win we have, they all leave their mark.  They build and they tear down. 

When we are torn down, we do whatever we can to put ourselves back together.  When we have someone or something in our lives that offers a bit of tape and glue, we administer it carefully, closing up the cracks and holes that shape our soul.  But really, what truly puts our pieces back together is the power and strength we can muster up ourselves.

Some people call it God.  Some call it the Divine within.  Others call it grit, self, human will.  Whatever you call it, it is this that builds us back up.  It is not another person.  It is not an outside experience.  It is not something good happening in your life.  It is YOU.  Whenever I am broken and beaten, I am the only one who can pull myself back together.  I will look like a holy mess on the inside, but that's A-OK with me.  Why?  Because I am whole, in and of myself.  I do not need someone else to make me more.  I am fine the way I am.  I am everything and nothing acting in tandem, and I can make or break myself. 

So, whatever glue, tape, or patch we stick and sew upon ourselves, rest assured it is all us.  Whatever place we are in mentally, emotionally, socially - only we can truly fill in the cracks and gaps. 

I may be barely holding together on some days, and hardened brick on others, but every day, I am all of me and I am whole.  And, so are you.