Broken-Into-Better

The moment I said it out loud, “God, I’m falling apart,” I expected a lightning bolt, a choir, maybe a strongly worded email. The house stayed quiet except for the old clock ticking.

“Falling apart?” came the answer, not in trumpet fanfare but from that creaky place inside me that still liked to use the word ‘why.’ “You mean breaking down.”

“Same thing,” I said. “I’ve got pieces. Buttons, promises, plans with missing screws. I need help. Can you put me back together?”

The reply was gentle and amused, like someone who had seen my model before: “I would rather not.”

“Why?”

“Because you aren’t a puzzle.”

The truth annoyed me in the frank way truths do. “But look at all the pieces on the floor.”

“Let them stay there for a while,” the voice said. “They fell off for a reason.”

They’d clattered out like cards. I crouched and nudged a few shards.

Some were glitter and confession, some were spare keys and a tiny bulb marked ‘hope.’ A few were actually useful: a list of friends, the receipt from a day that made me laugh.

“You don’t get it,” I said. “I’m breaking down.”

“No,” the voice corrected me. “You are breaking through.”

Breaking through sounded odd at first. “Growing pains?” I offered.

“Exactly. You’re shedding parts that didn’t fit. They kept you safe once, like padding in a too-tight coat. But now you’re being measured for something better.”

I pictured myself in a cloak of duct tape and labels that read: ‘comfort,’ ‘habit,’ ‘fear.’ I pulled one off, and it left a tacky smell.

It felt messy at first. “So when I let them fall,” I asked, “what’s left of me?”

“Only the very best pieces,” the voice said. “The bits made for light and love and useful courage.”

Courage was a battered lunchbox, dented but useful. Humor is a bandage. Hope is a pocket you can put your hands in.

“I’m scared,” I admitted. “I like the old things. Even the bad ones are known.”

“You aren’t changing,” the voice corrected. “You are becoming.”

There’s a difference between changing your shirt and growing into your skin. Becoming sounds right. “Becoming who?” I asked.

“Who I made you to be,” the voice said. “A person of mercy, curiosity.”

A laugh escaped me. “So I’m not broken?”

“No,” the voice said. “You’re breaking like the dawn. A new day takes time to spill its light. Let the pieces fall. Pick the ones that fit. The rest are not yours to carry.”

Outside, a truck rumbled, and my neighbor’s dog barked. My neighbor, who clips her hedges with the accuracy of a surgeon and the gossip of a podcaster, waved as I shuffled past.

“You look like you lost a few screws,” she said.

“Just re-work,” I answered. “Or at least trying to.”

She smiled.

Ordinary help is the whole point for the big stuff. You don’t always need a mechanic. You need a neighbor who brings coffee, or a friend who tells the truth.

I stood there a moment longer, breathing, sorting, feeling like a person who’d misplaced himself in the couch cushions and found a dollar and an old photograph while looking. It’s not fixing. It involves careful assembly, choosing what to keep, and allowing the rest to fall away, where it can perhaps find its own path.

“Become,” the voice whispered. “Become.”