Maybe We’re All A Little Broken (And Maybe That’s Okay)

I can’t remember the last time I felt okay.

To be quite honest, I’m not so sure such a time has ever existed at all.

For as long as I can remember, even as a little kid, I always felt as though pieces of myself were missing. I couldn’t help but notice that the mechanisms that make me who I am were always running a little off key, a little too high, a little too much.

After all, how couldn’t they? It was apparent that some of the vital parts that make someone a whole, functioning human being never made it to the assembly line of my soul.

I was incomplete from the very start.

As I got older and life moved forward, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something within me was very, very broken. I always thought that you would find yourself and learn to love your flaws with age, but I was only growing more cognizant of what was wrong with me, and in turn more hateful and sad towards myself.

After all, it’s not like I wanted to be broken! Not at all. I absolutely despised the rough edges and the jagged corners and my utterly cracked foundation. I didn’t view these as parts of myself that worth loving; I simply wanted them gone. Gone and replaced.

I so badly wanted to fix myself, and for a while I tried to do the repairs. I tried to patch up the holes, to sturdy my footing. I tried to draw less attention to everything that made me who I was so I could become someone else. Someone worth loving, someone worth seeing. Just someone at all, really.

But I failed.

Time and time again, the cracks always gave light to what it was that I was so desperately trying to hide. I could never quite grasp the role that was the latest version of myself I thought would be more liked, more accepted, more loved. I always came back to me. Broken, incomplete me.

But you know what? I’m starting to think that maybe this inherent brokenness is okay. That maybe I’m not meant to be whole. That maybe we’re all just a little bit broken.

Because, to be honest, I don’t think anyone ever feels completely “okay.” I don’t think anyone is ever fully confident with the direction their lives are going. I think it’s rare that people are positive that the person they love now will be the same person they love 20 years from now. I think we all have pieces of ourselves we wish weren’t there.

So, yes, maybe we all are a little broken, constantly falling over and apart over things that were never meant for us, people who were never meant to be ours, and moments that we were never allowed to keep. Maybe we’re all a little ungraceful and clumsy, a little coarse and disheveled.

But then again, maybe this is also what makes us lovable. Maybe we are loved because of the brokenness, not in spite of it. And maybe, just maybe, all this incompleteness has a purpose. Maybe our broken parts act like puzzle pieces that fill one another’s broken hearts. I don’t know, but I sure hope so.