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Writer's pictureJustine Candice

To the Beautiful Broken Girls

Updated: Jun 3, 2023


Click the photo to connect with the photographer, Cameron Martinez, on Instagram.


I wish there were a guide for putting the pieces back together, to fulfilling that void, loneliness, or whatever it is you need cured. One that is infallible to making you feel whole.


I was in love, more than once, but I felt for a long time, love was the purpose of life. At the time when I was living that nirvana, it felt true. In hindsight that was a broken view, and I was still broken while love was real. True it was a distraction from the healing I really needed to do, but I was in a paradise that poisoned my ambition. When my significant other realized the blanket covering how broken I was, our demise poisoned me too.


Upon being newly single, I eventually recognized the boys that acknowledged my significance vs the boys that only acknowledged my body. I realize now that they were just boys and nothing more. I have recognized that there are so many pieces to life than just love, but sometimes we must find for ourselves on our journeys those pieces that make us whole. Surely enough in time, I too learned more about becoming a woman and the things that make me feel alive. Still three years down the road, I am well put together, yet far from complete.


There are so many moments I wish I could freeze in time, feel, and experience continuously. “One more prolonged moment where time suspends indefinitely.” Jenny’s Letter to Nate, Someone Great.


When I love, I replay it over and over and never get my fill. In my heart is a place for all the things that ever moved me or shaped me. Some things don’t just go away, but other things do. When you must let go or say goodbye, whether you chose to or not, you are left with the pieces that were probably a version of you that felt whole. “Unfortunately, sometimes things don’t break, they shatter.” Someone Great.


As for my own shattered pieces, they follow me around like a ghost whose company I have learned to welcome. Sometimes I wear them on my sleeve, other times they’re so personal to me they’re never to be seen. While there is grief, I find comfort in remembering those moments were real and I am no less alive then, as I am now. They remain a constant in my life haunting me in the most beautiful ways translating every single day through the woman I am.


You would miss so many moments if you avoided all the things that you know aren’t going to last. Some of the greatest memories in my life I ultimately knew would come to an end, but I felt that was part of the beauty of those moments. Even when I truly did believe I had found something in my life to stay, it was shattering discovering that was not the case. Still, much of who I was were sealed in those moment that they imprinted permanently on my life. I cope with the loss knowing I will carry that with me until my life ends and that when one season ends another always follows.


Whatever the cause of your brokenness may be, you don’t have to be whole to be strong. You don’t have to be whole to live your life. You don’t have to be whole to love yourself. You don’t have to be whole to make moments in your life magic at times where it is just you. You don’t have to be whole when love finds you. You don’t have to be whole to be beautiful. You don’t have to be whole to have good morals. You don’t have to be whole to be happy. You don’t have to be whole to be a good mother. You don’t have to be whole to be a good friend or sibling. You don’t have to be whole to be successful. You don’t have to be whole to love to your fullest. You don’t have to be whole to be brave. You don’t have to be whole to be intelligent.


You don’t have to spend your life broken but know that being whole is not a requirement for being alive. Sometimes only certain things make us feel whole. Whole is not a lifestyle; it is a feeling and a state of mind.


“When you let the light in, shattered glass will glitter. In those moments when the pieces of what we were catch the sun. I’ll remember just how beautiful it was; just how beautiful it will always be because it was us and we were magic forever.” Someone Great.


When I find that wholeness I am searching for, whatever form it may be, I’ll still remember all those broken shattered pieces and be grateful.

 

Please follow the link I've added from Elephant Journal for a mindful read.





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