Thursday, October 25, 2007

Shattered

When I was in early high school or late middle school, we had an assembly in the gym featuring some guy talking about, I guess, science. I actually don't remember the stated purpose of the assembly, but I do remember that the guy had liquid nitrogen, into which he dipped a rose and one of those cheap foam rubber balls. He tapped the frozen rose against a table and it shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces. He dropped the ball on the floor, as if to bounce it, and it also shattered, the pieces skittering across the gym floor. The liquid nitrogen was so cold it changed the rose and the ball from something soft and pliable to something brittle and easily shattered.

I haven't been exposed to liquid nitrogen, but I have been exposed to tremendous stress these last few months and I have come to a point where I feel it in every inch of my body, not merely in my head and heart where stress usually lives. I feel stiff and inflexible at a cellular level. I feel the slightest tap, physical or emotional, could break me into a million teeny pieces, pieces sharp enough to cut those around me and do lasting damage.

What I keep wondering, though, is when the break comes, will the pieces of me make that same almost musical tinkling sound the rose made as it shattered all those years ago?

5 comments:

  1. Horrible...
    It is horrible when a human heart feels breakable. When that even has to enter into the idea of possibilities... I am sad and sorry to hear that this where you sit. It is tragic to know of the sadnesses and stresses that wreak havoc in the lives of each of us.

    Hoping that something crosses your path today and brings you a suspended moment that you can draw in and claim as your own. One full of peace and warmth... One step closer towards a restoration that you so obviously ache for.

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  2. Aw, crap honey. I had no idea. Do you wanna talk? Really I'm pretty good at it. You can call me. Email mail ifin ya wanna. Ifin not, hang in there and remember this too shall pass, of course, then some other shit will just start up, but this will be past.

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  3. I am not very good company right now but at least you wouldn't be miserable by yourself and if your pieces fell apart I would not criticize because I would be too distracted trying not to let my pieces get mixed in with your pieces...or putting my peanut butter in your chocolate :-)
    Call if you can. I rarely get you when I call your house.
    Love you. I AM grumpy but- here if you need me.

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  4. Feeling your pain... and loving what Misty said. Is it okay if I borrow a little of that gifted energy? Is there enough, do you think, for us to share?

    I, too, hope that you receive some respite from the tension and that healing can take its place.

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  5. Thanks everyone for the kind comments and e-mails. The situation hasn't really gotten better but I'm trying to take comfort in the fact that it hasn't yet gotten any worse.

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