It’s When You Are Most Broken That You Need To Hold On

You’re falling, splintering into shards and pieces before me. I’m trying to catch you, but my hands are too small and my arms are too weak and so we both collapse onto the floor in an entanglement of limbs. We’re submerged in a game of agony and relief. You’re crying like I’ve never seen you cry and all I can do is feed you empty promises of it will be okay and similar lies. 

But we will never be okay, not to the full degree. We will always be somewhat broken and displaced in fear and uncertainty. People will hurt us over and over, even the ones who aren’t supposed to. But don’t take this as a decree to give up; your reaction if anything should be the opposite.

Fight harder, love more. Take more risks instead of retreating. 

All we are and all we will be is this — a beautiful mess of effort and resilience. We must keep moving and poking at life’s uncertainties. Do not hide. Do not go gentle into that good night as Dylan Thomas asserts. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. That light might be dim in a moment like this, where you are broken and hurt. You might doubt your ability to heal and overcome, you might think that the prospect of a better tomorrow isn’t feasible. You cannot fathom how this pain and heartache will stop, but you forget that misery isn’t eternal. John Green was right when he said that pain demands to be felt, but he forgets that happiness is just as inevitable.

You may think happiness is fleeting, a transitory ride that passes like the seasons, but you are mistaken. Because happiness isn’t a state, it’s a journey. True happiness flows like a river and grows like a tree. It isn’t instant, it comes from growth. It comes from our trials and errors. We fall but we rise. We learn from the precursor of misery and form the elasticity to survive.

And if you can’t bring yourself up, I’ll do it for you. I will show you the merit of my words and make you believe in your strength. Right now, all you can do is cry and that’s okay because this isn’t a journey void of company. Thomas never said you had to rage against the dim light alone and Green never implied that pain was confined to be individual. I will hold you; I will be your resilience until you find your own again. And you will find it; you will heal and ascend like the imperative sunrises that follow the darkness.