We brush up against each other and it hurts.
It’s far easier to isolate. Run and hide or segregate.
But I want to learn and hear your stories; check my judgments and preconceived beliefs and see you – a person just like me.
With all your jagged edges.
I’m bad at conflict and really just want peace. But peace is not the fruit of pretending all is well or refusing to acknowledge pain in you or myself.
We are different, you and I. Yet so very much the same. We walk in different circles and see through a different lens. But in the end, we both want to feed our babies and watch them grow into men.
You wear your tattoos and I wear my scars and we are not so different after all.
With all our jagged edges.
It’s easy when we’ve been hurt before to make sure it never happens again. To stay in familiar and where we are known but beauty is often found in the murky places. The wild spaces. The great unknown.
It’s easy when we feel afraid to hide behind our screens and forget that I will never be whole while you suffer and die. I need you and you need me. We’re tangled up together in life and to give I must receive.
And when you reach out your calloused hand and tender soul to offer up hope to my need they will become sore and raw and likely bleed.
From all my jagged edges.
It costs us to love. It costs us our pride and safety. Our defensiveness and ego. Our knowing that we’re right and you’re wrong and there is no in-between.
It costs us our ambition and right to thrive while you despair. My self-righteous increase while your life is laid bare.
But if we die then we die well. If I pour out it is to feed you. If you pour out it is my gain. If we shake hands it does not mean that all hurt is erased and all answers made plain.
It simply means I see all your jagged edges and they look just like mine.
You walk in shame, I live in fear, we miss the joy of this ordinary day.
Hiding our colour and putting on masks, sleeping our beautiful lives away.
I wonder when we will walk free. When will I stop hurting you?
With all my jagged edges.
When we stare long enough and inch up close, we notice what we could not see before. Instead of graffiti, we see story; in place of struggle, we see hope.
All your broken places edged with gold.
I thought I was alone; now I see that we’re all one. You are water, I am earth, inextricably bound. You are not my enemy and I am your friend. You drip beauty through your imperfection.
And all your jagged edges.
Krista xo
NOW WHAT? If you are interested in further exploring the idea of building community and learning from each other you may like Becoming Wise and Braving the Wilderness (affiliate links).
I like to write “micro stories” – unedited, unfiltered, honest snapshots of my life in progress, often shared first on social media.
