Aren’t we all? I certainly am. If you have lived, you are broken. Like a pot of shards or twigs snapped in two, our brokenness allows us to not drown in the oblivion of darkness, but like the seed must be planted to grow, we must die to live.

Most of us want to avoid this strewing of ourselves, this cracking. But is our beauty not born from our secret places. Does the fire of our eye not show what we have been through? Sometimes it is yanking that monster up by the root to feel the blood in our veins.

I wish there were no monsters. I wish it was all fine, bright weather and fresh showers and sweet mornings that would never fade away. I wish that your brokenness had not come. I pray that you are bursting forth with new leaf not withering on the vine. I pray you find treasures in the trash, that you have magical romances and your days are filled with joy.

I also pray that when the lamps grow low and give little light that you can climb the trellis of your despair, scale the walls of old days and burn with light anew. That when the day is over you can lay your head down softly and that your heart is glad.

Yes, I am impossibly broken, but like the great sword Andúril, may I be forged back stronger, better, brighter. May I be no ordinary sword. May I shine so keen that I will draw people in. May I fight the great fight singing, not weeping, and may I overcome my enemies who would love nothing more than to press my face down in the mud and deliver my death wound.

We are all impossibly broken, but that is what makes us beautiful.