“See the lonely girl, out on the weekend, tryin’ to make
it pay. She can't relate to joy, oh-oh she tries to speak and can't begin to
say…”
-
Lady Gaga, intro to “Fooled Me Again (Honest
Eyes)” (unreleased)
“I'm perfectly imperfect, you know? It's like…and we all
are. And we all have our things that we go through.”
-
Lady Gaga, interview with Oprah Winfrey on the
WW “2020 Vision Tour”, January 4, 2020
When I was a little girl, I spent a lot of time at my
grandparents' house. Like…a lot. Entire weeks during the summer. Lots of
weekends throughout the year. Days off from school. My grandmother was
basically my primary caregiver after Mom went back to work full time when I was
three, so she was a huge influence in my life. She loved art, music, and
books—anything creative, and she passed that along to me. When I expressed an
interest in writing, she bought new ink ribbons, gave me her old manual
typewriter, sat me down at her dining room table, and told me to go ahead and
write. Technically, you can blame her for this blog's existence—and if you're
one of my nearest and dearest friends, also my wordy text messages. Sorry, not
sorry.
But I digress.
One thing I remember well from my childhood is my
grandmother's collection of music boxes, which she allowed me to play with whenever I wanted. My favorite of these was an antique, wooden music and
trinket box that played “Here Comes the Bride”.
Well…it was supposed to, anyway. You see, the melody was nearly unrecognizable
by the time I first got my grubby paws on it. Something in the mechanism had
broken or been damaged years before, and it sounded more like a jumbled mess of
tinny “dings” and “clinks” with just a few identifiable notes mixed in. The box
itself was scratched and nicked from years of rough handling, the baby blue
paint was faded and chipping off, and the ceramic medallion on the lid, a
picture of a dancing couple in 18th
century dress, had been broken, glued back together, and stuck crookedly back on top of the lid who knows
how many times.
I loved that music box. I wish I still had it, but I don't
know where it ended up. Most likely, my grandfather, who was much less
sentimental than his wife, finally got rid of it after she passed away. But in
general, broken things, even things that most people would have considered beyond repair or not worth the effort and
tossed into the trash, were still treasured in that house.
Not all broken things are trash to be discarded and
forgotten. Sometimes, a little glue and a little TLC is all that is needed to
hold the pieces together, so that it can be kept and
treasured by the right person.
The same can be said of broken people.
No. I don't mean broken in the sense that they're not good
enough as they are. I don't mean that their problems, whatever they might be,
can (or even should) be “fixed” once and for all, and the bad stuff will
magically go away, and everything will be all better, and no one will have to
deal with it anymore, la la la la la…that's not how any of this works.
When I say “broken” people, I mean the ones who have big, heavy baggage. The ones who have been hurt and now have a hard time trusting, or
believing that they are worthy of love and better treatment. The ones who look
in the mirror and hate what they see, or who cannot bear to look at all. The
ones who carry the weight of past choices and mistakes with them everywhere
they go. The ones who endure physical or mental health issues that make just lifting
their head from the pillow a feat that is entirely beyond their power at times.
The ones whose highest “up” days would seem almost unbearably sad to someone
who didn't have to face the same daily challenges, and whose lowest “down” days
would leave most of us curled up in the fetal position, weeping in a dark
corner and wondering how anyone could ever manage to get through that and
somehow keep going. The ones who desperately want light, love, and
happiness in their lives but have known only shadows, loneliness, and sadness
for so long that they’ve given up hope of finding it for themselves in any form
that will last. The ones who are “strong” and suffer in silence because no one has been around to help them through the bad times before, so they don't know
any other way to be, and they don't know how to ask for someone to help them now. The
ones who throw everything they have into making others smile, laugh, and experience
all of the joy that they can't feel.
Now, don't misunderstand me; I’m not suggesting that all
that is broken (or all who are broken) can be held together with a bit
of glue, literally or figuratively. Broken can be dangerous sometimes, too. Like
a glass dropped and shattered in the sink, or the remains of a car in the
aftermath of a crash, where you've already had to be cut out with the jaws of
life, and all that's left is a twisted heap of rusted metal—the jagged edges more
likely to make you bleed than not, and impossible to put back together in order
to make it work the same as it used to. Sure…maybe someone who makes mosaic art
could turn the shards of glass into something lovely, or the twisted wreckage could
be salvaged for usable parts and materials. But that's not the same kind of
brokenness I'm talking about here. Abusive is a different kind of broken.
Violent is a different kind of broken. You get the picture, I hope.
A couple of months ago now, I read an opinion
piece that someone wrote about A Star Is Born. One of the only things I
retained from this article (the overall tone of which made me so angry that I stopped reading partway through), is that the author said the storyline was awful because Ally should never have ended up with, let alone stayed with, Jack because of
his addiction and mental health problems. She’d have been better off without
him, and basically she was stupid for not steering clear of him. And okay, I get it—her life would have certainly been less complicated,
arguably freer from drama, and frankly more normal, if only she’d
refused to have that first drink with him after her performance in the drag
bar. If she’d declined to get to know him. If she’d never fallen in love with and married him. If she’d decided that his broken pieces were too far gone to bother with,
instead of recognizing the brokenness, then gathering the pieces closer and
reaching for the glue anyway, hoping for the best.
True, Jack and Ally's story did not include a “happily ever after”
ending. The glue wasn’t enough to keep Jack’s broken pieces together long-term, and Ally surely bled when they finally fell apart for the last time.
But between the two of them, they tried. He was worth it to her. He obviously
thought she was worth trying to keep himself together, too, even if he lost his
grip on the pieces in the end. And anyone who's seen the movie has to admit,
what they had and what they created during their time together, in spite of the
visible cracks, was beautiful.
Broken is still beautiful to the right eyes and the right
heart. Broken is worth picking up whatever pieces you can, grabbing the
glue, and sticking them back together again…and again…and again, maybe every
day for as long as you live—never entirely “fixed” and just like new, but holding on in spite of the cracks. Perfectly imperfect.
Broken is worthy of love. Like Jack and Ally. Like my grandmother's music box. And like
you, Little Monster, if any of this feels like I'm writing about you.
Maybe I am writing about you. I know I'm writing
about me.
Love and Paws Up Always.
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