Even When I Break I Am Beautiful

I often think about the anatomy of the heart: the four chambers working tirelessly to keep us alive, the carefully positioned valves to ensure the efficient sync of blood flow and the meticulously positioned specialized cells to ensure proper rhythm. I marvel at the creation of an almost Sisyphean organ, relentless in the pursuit of a task that never quite ends and when it does you realize it is fundamentally the task that can be said to be of utmost importance. I think this is why we put great emphasis on the heart, from the greatest poets to filmmakers, we all realize that nothing quite breaks like a heart.

It seems almost ironical that one of the most resilient organs in our bodies can be shattered by comments and actions of others and even more so our own selves. I think I have broken my own hardworking heart more times than any other human has even done. I have let myself believe that the worst is always around the corner and that the universe is insidiously plotting against me to make sure that my happiness is timed.

Every smile has a set timer before the next diabolical event is sent to wipe it away. I have ensured that I am the sole proprietor of my suffering by sulking and building walls around the same heart I am breaking so that no one can get in. Even going the extra mile to distance myself from anyone who ever tried to scale up my walls and help me. Allowing fear to set up camp and guide every decision that I make.

I am afraid that this is the reality for most of us. Betraying a heart that lives to serve you, graciously day by day. The worst part is that it is not solely our fault. We do not live in a vacuum and everything we experience shapes us in one way or another. Our childhoods being one of the most contributing factors as well as the trauma imparted on us by an at times cruel world. We all have our own different little worlds and some of them have been happier or worse than others and you never really know what someone’s world looks like.

I really wish that people came with trailers, like in the movies, it would be easier to know what parts of someone are broken so that we could try and mend those parts for them without them really saying it out loud for us to hear. It would be great if someone had a glimpse of the things that keep me up at night and provide sweet melatonin-like words to soother me into a restful night without me having to bear my already guarded heart out to them. Sadly, we do not have the technology for this yet.

There is a Japanese concept that I really like that could be a potential answer to feeling like you’ll forever be broken. Kintsugi is the art of mending broken pieces of pottery together using gold. I think it translates to not hiding that you are broken or flawed but simply embracing the cracks. It means that imperfection can also be perfection. It means that I too wake up every single day despite all the challenges I face and keep on trying just like my silly little heart to complete the task of existing and being okay.

Our battles, both silent and loud, are weirdly the things that make us unique. Why is it that we hear soldiers boasting about their battle scars and always being ready to show them off? That is their Kintsugi. It is proof that they survived, that the wounds from the battle did not keep them down. It is better to rebuild that to assume that all is lost.

I think that is what life is, an endless project of rebuilding what is broken. It sounds mostly tedious and very unrewarding, but what if it doesn’t have to be? What if we added just a touch of gold? Urushi, is the traditional material used for Kintsugi mending. It is a Japanese lacquer derived from tree sap. On second thought, I think life is about finding endless sources of Urushi. It is about finding the sap that pieces up back into who we are when we are broken.

We might return being a little broken but also a little more golden too. It is knowing that every time you break, you can come back being even more beautiful that before. It is believing that you are just as resilient as your heart and its many intricate pieces. It is realizing that maybe when we say someone has a heart of gold it can also mean that despite the many times that their heart has been broken, they pieced themselves up every single time and it made them golden.