Source: broken and ready ‹ Reader — WordPress.com click and read…trust me, it’s worth it…

I’ve taken a break from WordPress for most of the year and only today opted back into following my favoured writers. Most nights before flipping the lights out (or being thumped in the face by the volume I’m reading) I try to wade a little further through Stephen King’s Dark Tower epic (almost done with Book III)…tonight, I opened up WordPress’ Reader instead and found Rara’s latest post, the electrons still dripping…her words struck such a  chord I am up and writing at something past twelve…

I don’t usually write when I’m upset.  When something hurts me, or twists my truths, or shakes the core of my world– I phone a friend.  I brew some tea.  I ask my mother a question she couldn’t possibly answer, and I write a million notes down in one of my million notebooks.

I don’t usually write in the moment of a broken heart.  I’m not ready.

I wait to digest my thoughts.  I taste them– the flavor and texture– and then let the acids that fizzle inside of me break them down.  I let the fire inside of me burn them up, until all that is left over are the indigestibles.

Right now, I can’t seem to process anything.  My insides are completely full of huge, indigestible feels….

 

…They know my elevator pitch by heart.

You probably know it, too.

It goes like this:
You are loved.

Every word I waste and every story I spend, all comes back to this….

Wow!! I’m speechless, at a loss, shaken by the power of Rara’s words, as unformed as she may think them to be…she’s been through tough times recently (read between the lines in this is not a test) I’ve followed her work for a long time and this post is one of her best…

If the sun goes down over a man in India, while he washes a pot big enough to bathe in, and he doesn’t know he is loved– what does it matter?  If the sun rises on a woman as she piles veterinary books in a tote bag, somewhere in the middle of Illinois, and she doesn’t know she is loved– what does it matter?

What indeed? Not so long ago, someone I know got to a point in their life where they no longer felt valued, felt they were not loved, that they had got to a point where there was no way back, not even a tunnel for there to be a light at the end of…a very dark place…

Some of you may think you know who I’m talking about but, trust me, you probably don’t…no one sees all my faces and for now that’s good with me (I thought of using a house of cards to illustrate my many facets but now that Google search only returns four zillion pictures of Kevin Spacey…)…don’t play Sherlock, just pick up on the message…

When I heard, I was angry…

…angry at them, who I know would fight, kick, scratch, gouge, and bludgeon to help others, for not doing the same for themselves…it’s OK – it’s not selfish – to fight for yourself…for not calling emailing screaming calling for fire sending smoke signals cutting crop circles that said I need some help here, yes, me, over here, help me, help me, help me…

…angry at me for not reading the signs…if there were any…all too often we only see these through the lenses of 20-20 hindsight…and angry at myself for not being able to generate some sort of retroactive rescue mission to interdict that moment of uncharacteristic weakness and leave nothing but scorched earth behind (yep angry angry)…

…angry at all those insignificant casual/causal clumsy pin pricks that wear people down, the petty games that literally suck away the will to live…

…and just generally angry at a world which allows people with so much to offer to get to a place so dark and, let’s be honest, when I get like this I’m kinda an equal opportunity anger sort of guy…spreading the love as it were…

Angry’s good sometimes…it purifies and clarifies thought…and this story has a happy ending…helplessness haunts the dark places..and those around them…you can always do something…even teach a horse to sing…if nothing else…

I can sit in my folding chair and hear your message, and hope you’re hearing mine.

You are loved.

No matter where you’d be on a faded map, if you were just a scattered dot.

You are loved. You are valued.

I am loved. I am valued.

Today’s Rara badge of courage