Being Humpty Dumpty isn't all it's cracked up to be

Terrible pun in the title, I know. I thought about adding in a joking/yolking pun too, but I was afraid then that people might actually start throwing eggs at me. So I actually came up with this post the other day when I was in a very weird/emo mood. I felt like I had to evaluate the contents when I was in a normal mood before posting in order to make sure it a) actually made sense and b)wasn't too crazy. I have come to the conclusion that I actually made some good points, so here goes.

I got to thinking about how all of us have broken parts or healed breaks in one place or another. Some of us just have more visible cracks than others. I was broken in a very visible way. Anyone could tell how very unhappy I was if they took even the most cursory glance at my life. I stayed in pieces for a long time, mainly because I didn't feel like I was worth the effort of putting back together. When I finally did decide I was worth the effort, I initially tried to mold myself and my life into exactly how it was before, when everything looked perfect on the outside. I thought only that result would mean I had been successful. Then I was kind of like, "Hang on, stupid...that didn't work out so great for you before." So I have put myself and my life back together differently now, pieced together a new and different me. Maybe it doesn't look so perfect on the outside. That's okay, I'm far from perfect on the inside too. I'm not all about being perfect anymore though.

I spent a long time being ashamed of some of the choices I have made in my past that led to me being so broken. I just couldn't forgive myself for not being perfect. And really, if I am not willing to give myself a second chance, how can I expect others to? But lately I have come to realize that all of my choices, good and bad, led me to where I am today, and I like that place very much. It would be easy to say that you wish you could take back all those bad choices, and then life would be perfect. But the truth is that you can't control cause and effect. You don't know if some bad choices are what ultimately led to some good choices and outcomes. So my past is just that; my past. For the most part, I have moved past being ashamed of part of it. My feeling is that you can either be bitter about the way things have gone in the past, or you can strive to to make the future better.

The nurse/scientific part tells me that breaks and scars in the human body can only be 80% as strong as they were before (why I remember that random fact from school, I couldn't tell you). But what I am here to say is that emotional breaks and scars are just proof that you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you. That they are a sign of healing. That they enable you to be stronger than you could have ever been otherwise, if you allow yourself to be. My broken places are in some ways my very strongest parts. I am perfectly imperfect, just like everyone else is in one way or another. As the great orator Emilio Estevez once said (haha, such a random person, but I really like this quote), "We are all wonderful, beautiful wrecks. That's what connects us--that we're all broken, all beautifully imperfect."

So yeah, at this point you may be wondering if this post is a result of too many bottles of wine or something. I assure you, it is not. Like I said, I was in a weird mood and this is the result of it. I hope you get something out of it. I'll share one more quote, because a) it's my blog and I do what I want b) if you've read this blog before, you already know that I'm obsessed with collecting quotes and c) I really like this quote too, mainly because Ernest Hemingway is my dawg.