all the pieces

all the pieces,
scattered and tattered along the way…
a little confidence here,
some assertiveness there,
genuine smiles replaced by a forced grins,
easy laughter a thing of the past…

and almost nobody noticed.

was i a world class actress?
did they know and it was just too hard?

the brokenness became comfortable,
limping through each day,
longing for the solitude and loneliness of night
when sleep came in fits
and with its own set of terror,
but was at least a break from pretending,
a time to reconcile the brokenness and loneliness,
to recharge, rehearse
the smiles, the laughter, the show
that came every morning
no matter how much i begged (prayed)
for a change.

and then, in a flash
(isn’t that always the way?)
the change came
when she opened the door.

every day since that day
has held more healing
than i even knew i needed.
the broken places are whole,
pieces of myself i wrote off as
casualties of life,
woven back into the fabric of *this* life,
more beautiful than they were before
pain replaced with the most abundant joy

wholeness from the brokenness

xoxo, k