Journey. in Phoenix

No one knows my journey. No one single person has the whole picture. No one but me. Many, many people have little pieces, some more than others. But none of them have the whole. So none of them, no one on earth, knows truly who I am, how far I’ve come, and how far I still have to travel.

I have the whole picture, the whole journey, but it’s fractured. I can see all the cracks, the flaws. I can see what has been repaired, like kintsugi art - the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold? I can see some of my cracks filled in, repaired. Those cracks are so beautiful to me, make me so proud of how hard I worked to mend them. I can see what’s been repaired, but also how much is still fractured, empty. Raw, jagged edges, sharp edges that cut deep.

I feel like I’ll never be able to repair them all because new ones keep forming. Every time I feel like I’ve filled in another crack, answered another question about myself, and learned how to heal the damage, something seems to come along and sneak a new fracture in. And that’s why I never let any one person see all of the pieces because, sometimes, when you let someone in that deep, they…

Everyone leaves. Everyone, always, one way or another, they all leave. Why keep inviting them in if they’ll only leave more damage than they found when they inevitably choose to leave?

I just wish I could show someone all of the cracks and have them want to help me fill them in with love and light and peace and acceptance. All I’ve ever wanted was to be loved just as I am: a work in progress.