Thrown away…

As long as I can remember I have picked up broken things and fixed them. I have had a life of picking up other peoples rejects and dusting them off, repairing a few facets, and putting it back out there. I walk down the street and pick up washers. I clean up a fence line I pick up stray scraps of wire and put them on the fence post, maybe keeping a piece if it’s too short. I pull chunks of long dead trees out of the ground and take them off with me. All of these things are rejected by others, considered waste, yet hold more value to me.

Too much personal psychoanalysis and I understand at least part of the reason is that I have been discarded; thrown away by my parents, and nearly every other person important to me in my life. My mother cast me aside for her abusive boyfriend, my dad abandoned me so he could continue to be an unsuccessful coke dealer, and most of my closest friends stopped talking to me when I went to prison. True, my dad was robbed and sent home naked on a bad coke-weed swap, and I was in danger, so rather than put his kid first he sent me to live with my mom and her boyfriend. Yes I was a threat to my moms boyfriend, if he had started hitting her while I was still there even at 12 I would have done something. I was absolutely a dick when I got arrested and even after my first bit of time in prison, true friends are there for you even when you don’t behave well, especially if there are extenuating circumstances.

Today when I cut lots into slabs I tend to take the best pieces and sell them. When I find pieces that no-one else wants, that I can see an inner beauty in it’s future. I’m not sure this is the best method for financial success, it’s the fulfillment that I get out of taking other peoples rejects and making the most of it. In other writing I have referred to myself as a broken toy, and I guess Im still looking for people in my life who are not going to throw me away.

One of the facets of self love that I have learned is not to try to fix, rather to lean into my broken parts. I’m incredibly stubborn, highly emotional, my brain is degrading, and poor at management. I remember finding a broken ceramic sun, it was one of the first times I kept the JB Weld in my pocket, and instead just placed it in the garden without fixing it. I helped work in that garden years later, and that sun had flowers growing up through it’s cracks in such a beautiful way. Not everything or everyone needs to be fixed, maybe we all just need to be loved for exactly who we are, not what we could be.