Christmas 2022, I gave my counsellor a pencil for Christmas. While it accompanied a journal, the main part of the gift was a pencil. I know to you it may sound silly, but it was not. In fact, for a short period of time, while adjusting to life after divorce, I walked around with a pencil in my purse. I had no intentions of using it. It was symbolic, as my counsellor had explained. And I needed a constant reminder of that, so I carried it with me.

I remember, a couple of years prior, sitting on her couch, crying. The stereotypical therapy session, right? I owe this woman 20 boxes of tissues, I am sure of it. This session wasn’t long after I separated from my spouse, after 8 years of marriage and 20 years together. I remember saying “this wasn’t my plan for life”. She took out a pencil and said, “Do you know why pencils have erasers?”  I said, “to erase mistakes”. She simply said “No, but plans change” and went on to explain that plans are fluent. We often get a chance for a do over. This was one of those chances.

It made complete sense, and I cried harder. Maybe because at the time I didn’t want things to change because I was so lonely and scared to death. I was coming to terms with my divorce, trying to keep myself together, while caring for my kids, who also felt like they were falling apart.

I’ve always been resistant to change. I never handled it well. While I know that good things can come from change, I’m very much a creature of habit so anything new, anything that disrupts the equilibrium of life, is terrifying in my mind.

Yet there I was, a 37 year old woman who had been with her spouse for literally more than half of her life, in unchartered territory. Alone. Two kids in tow. One income. No house. Broken.

While I don’t like referring to myself as ‘broken’ back then, but when I was unable to get off the bathroom floor from crying, there is no other way to describe how I felt other than broken.  My life, my heart, my family, my emotions, all shattered in pieces on the bathroom floor. No amount of glue could put them back together, I thought. I felt.

Something my counsellor said during that session resonated with me. Broken implies damaged beyond repair. I changed my thinking and saw myself as shattered, but someday my pieces would go back together, just in a different way. I would be slightly different than I was before, but no less beautiful. She said I’d be stronger. I liked that idea.

It’s been 6 years since that session. While I feel there are still pieces that need tighter glue to stay in place, I am back together. Not without scars, flaws or carrying around pieces of myself that still carry the weight of the past so heavily. But I’m in one piece. My counsellor was right……. I am different. I am most definitely stronger. Bathroom floors are strictly for cleaning these days.

I recently discovered a song by Kelly Clarkson called ‘Broken and beautiful’. When I play it, I sing it loud and proud, especially when she says “I know I’m superwoman. I know I’m strong. I know I’ve got this cause I’ve had it all along.  I’m phenomenal. I’m enough. I don’t need you to tell me who to be”.

Kelly sings “I’m broken and it’s beautiful”. However, when I sing it, I say “I’m reconstructed and it’s beautiful’. For some reason, it doesn’t have the same effect. Perhaps that’s why she’s the professional sing/songwriter. I’ll just stick to my blog.