There's Beauty in the Breakdown

Frustration, jealousy, anger, and bitterness are awful emotions. But the worst feeling I have endured thus far in my young life, worse than being fighting mad or green with envy, is a sense of absolute helplessness. Completely helpless. It's that rotten, empty pain I felt in my gut when I learned that my childhood best friend died far too young in a car accident before our senior year of high school. It's the feeling I relived when I learned my high school crush and another high school friend died in separate tragic accidents a couple years later, not even 2 weeks apart. It's what I felt over and over again as I watched people I love damaging their souls and spirits with destructive behavior. It's that aching in my chest when I learn someone I love is sick. It's the feeling I have as I sit here right now. Helpless. 

There are things in life that we have absolutely no control over and, to be completely honest, that drives me bat shit nuts. I come from a long line of disciplined, organized women. Fixers. We may not know the right answers all the time but we will work tirelessly until we figure it out and we will do so in a timely fashion. Guaranteed. You need a dozen bars for a bake sale? We'll make 2 dozen! You need somebody to chaperone a dance? Done. And we'll find a friend to help too. You need somebody to be on the most boring church committee in the history of church committees? Oh sure, I suppose so. I mean, what would Jesus do? 

We Wold women are good with problem solving, that's for sure; but give us a situation where we have no control, where we are forced to give it to God, to karma, to any power other than our own two hands and the brain in our heads? That is our achilles heal. We're not so good at giving up the reigns. I used to think that I was the free spirit of the family, the one most likely to accept things as they are, to trust that it will all turn out as it is supposed to be. But as I grow older and as more painful things happen in my life, I find that I am asking one single question more and more - WHY!?

Why do things just seem to fall into place for cold-hearted people while the most painful experiences happen to the sweetest, most loving people I know? Why did two of the most genuine, authentic people I ever met die before they could even have a legal drink? Why do I get to marry my best friend while another woman, who has just as much love in her heart, has to visit her boyfriend at his grave? Why does an athletic, hard working 22 year old man have to fight for his life, then fight to regain basic life skills, while others his age are risking their life every day with drugs and alcohol? Why is my closest friend, my sunshine and confidant, going through such a confusing, painful experience without any clear answers? Helpless.

My friend Amy - the friend that taught me to love without limits, to accept people as they are instead of how I wished them to be, to dream without fear - the same friend who died the summer before our senior year, she choreographed a dance to the song "Let Go" by Frou Frou the year before she died. The main line in the song, a line that repeats over and over, states: "It's alright 'cuz there's beauty in the breakdown." 

The helplessness in a moment of pain and frustration has the ability to form an emotional prison. There are moments in my life when I feel just that, imprisoned - trapped by a sort of emptiness and hurt that caused me to curl up in my bed, crying for the kind of hours that seemed like days. Yet right there in that moment, right in the middle of the whys, the what ifs, the if onlys, there is a sort of beauty. A release. An acceptance that I don't need to have it all together all the time. A beautiful breakdown of all that I was holding in for far too long. 

Never expect to have all the right answers. Don't try to do it all by yourself. There is a special kind of strength in asking someone for help - to listen, to hug, to remind you that it will get better. There is always a glimmer of hope in the darkest of situations and, just like that song foreshadowed so many years ago, there is always a little beauty in the breakdown.