Eyes Open

I recently "celebrated" an auspicious personal anniversary. It has now been over a year since my heart--along with my views on God, faith, obedience, love, loyalty, family, eternity, and especially my own infallibility--quite suddenly shattered, leaving not even fragments, but mere dust behind.

I recently mentioned this to my mom, who tried to distract me. I don't blame her. She was the one who carefully swept up the still-pulsing dust, sure it would become useful once again, and endured the staring shell who ruined parties, sputtered unanswerable questions repeatedly through sobs, and finally decided that life could only resume thousands of miles away from the painful epicenter.

I don't know if I was able to convince her how vital it was for me to remember that devastating time--not just to wallow, which was inevitable--but also to marvel at how drastically that experience has altered and continues to alter me. I have always believed that true change is indistinguishably gradual, that the soul must be gently prepared for it to take root, and that instantaneous transformation is rare. I have since learned that just one experience can cause a myriad of instantaneous changes--across vast stretches of time--it simply depends on the instant.

A year ago I couldn't see my way out of the carpet, in which I thought, and hoped, I would smother and drown in the salty expressions of my grief.

Today, I sit at a desk thousands of miles away. I am a new woman with the same face. There are gaping holes in my patched-up heart that ache often, but it no longer pulses so violently, and it is no longer dust. Changes are less cataclysmic, and have become barely noticeable again.

I'm grateful for the strength I've been given. It was not my own. My understanding of mistakes and forgiveness has grown and deepened. Miraculously, my view of myself is better, and also worse, than it has ever been. I am the sadder, but wiser girl. I see now why even heroes have flaws that utterly destroy them, if they refuse to change. I know now that what doesn't kill us, does, in fact, make us stronger.

But I don't know if I will ever agree that it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.