Broken

 I am so broken and exhausted. I keep thinking that I am angry but really, I just feel broken and exhausted and out of place. 

I have no idea what happens next. I'm not waiting to exhale. If anything, I am waiting to inhale again. 

Everything broke. I broke and the dreams and ideas and plans ran out through the cracks and now what? 

And yet, I don't feel awful. I would think that I would feel awful and depressed and full of darkness and despair. (I'm not even going to quote Leonard Cohen, I am so tired of that quote!)

Today, I read this from "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer:

"Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily." 

In the midst of all of the grief and fear and anger and loneliness and isolation and violence of the past 18 or so months, not to mention the difficult times prior to the pandemic, it seems that all I am left with is wonder and joy. And that is a hell of a thing. 

Wonder and joy don't make the brokenness go away. Wonder and joy may not even put me or anything else back together. Maybe the point is to accept that they exist even here, even now. Somehow, they are beyond the brokenness, not born from it. Wonder and joy just are, and because of that, they make the brokenness more bearable. 

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