It's who I am.

     It's been a long time since I've posted anything here. Well, a LOT has happened.  One of those things is that I'm going back to school. I am loving it. This semester I am taking a creative writing class. My professor is Marion Winik, published author and host of a book review show on NPR. Our assignment this week was to write an essay about 'what it's like to be me.'  After she read my submission, she told me that I should publish it.  For a book reviewer to say that to me meant a lot.  Besides that...I really enjoyed the piece.  So, here it is.  I hope you enjoy it.

     I am broken. I wasn’t always this way, but I am now. And, I'm OK with that. Sure, my damage has taken its toll on my life. I used to think that I would never be whole again, that I was broken pottery…a once beautiful vessel now damaged and rendered useless.  And why wouldn’t I be broken? To go through everything I have gone through...to see the things I have seen, takes strength, yet makes one feel so very weak. It can break even the hardest of hearts.

     I know I am broken. Yet, I choose to NOT let this detail define who I am. They say one cannot be brave without first being afraid. Well, I say one cannot truly be whole, without first being broken. The world broke me. A miserable marriage that I stayed in way too long broke me.  War broke me. Losing everything that I held dear broke me.  There's an odd thing about being broken, though. You don’t always see it, until it’s too late. I didn’t know what broken felt like, until it was too late.
    
     Broken was being angry and not knowing why. Broken was losing myself to make others happy. Broken was not being in control of where I was. It was the times when one moment I was laughing with friends at a spring barbecue and the next I was back in Iraq, in the streets of Habbaniyah. I could feel the sand in my teeth, the sweat in my eyes, and the weight of my body armor on my shoulders. The only thing that brought me back was the voice of a friend or a hand on my shoulder.  I would return to the present, blinking and bewildered. That return often came with the all too familiar look of pity; the same look a child makes when they drop their ice cream cone, or break one of their toys.
   
     Being broken was wanting to go with my family to the Fourth of July fireworks, only to find in the rocket’s red glare, my 8 year old son holding my face and asking, “Daddy, why are you crying,” with bombs bursting in air. "Daddy's OK, Punk," was the lie I told him, because how do I tell my son that Daddy's been broken?  Broken was coffee in a crowded café with my best friend, and he asks what’s wrong when I noticeably tensed up because it was getting a bit crowded in there.  Broken was jumping at sudden noises and instinctively reaching for my hip, although I had not been near a real explosion or had need for a sidearm in a couple of years.
   
     I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know what. I had read, somewhere, about Kintsukuroi. It means “to repair with gold.” The Japanese created this art form, repairing broken pottery by filling the cracks and gaps with gold. Thus, the repaired piece is more valuable and beautiful than it was before it had been broken. I knew what needed to be done. I needed to fill my cracks with gold.
    
     Now, being broken is different. Broken is twice a month therapy, even when I'm feeling OK. It is consciously dealing with having witnessed death...the death that comes from bombs and guns, as well as the death that happens in a relationship when one person tries to keep two people married. It is dealing with pain and anger and confusion by slowing down and thinking through things. Broken is having nightmares, but knowing how to work through them when they wake me up. Broken is knowing pain and ugliness lives in the world, but choosing to seek out art and beauty everywhere I go and in everyone I meet. Broken is finding the really real kind of love, the kind I didn't think existed anymore, and working every day to keep her in my life.
    
     Broken is knowing that I am not like everyone else, but not letting it define who I am now.  Broken is learning to recognize the cracks in others, and to see how they can fill them with gold. Broken is a conscious effort to roll out of bed every morning and be a better person than I was the day before. Because being broken doesn’t preclude me from being a parent, an example, and a role model. Being broken is knowing that "broken" describes my yesterdays, not my tomorrows.


So that was it.  I know it's heavy. But it's also one of the most real things I've ever written.  I like it because of how heavy and real it is. It's who I am.

Sarge,
Out