Pieces

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

— C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)

I have loved, I have hated, I have been broken, and broken those around me.  Little pieces of myself chipped off and handed over.  These empty parts of me, little crevices that once contained pieces of my soul have healed.  They have grown over and hardened.  But much like the scar tissue of a past injury, they still sear with pain unexpectedly.  A memory, familiar surrounding, situation, will cause them to scream out and remind me of where they came from, of who gave them to me. 



I used to think that to be truly past something or someone we must become unfeeling towards them, rid ourselves of any connection to them and soldier on into the future.  But these irritating little scars, painful reminders of a love lost will always pull me back, for a moment.

I made myself vulernable and allowed love in.  A love that chipped off the little pieces of me and allowed them to scar over.  A love that left me confused, irrational, insecure.  But a love nonetheless.  Was it worth it?  I don't think I'll ever be able to fully answer that question.

To love is to be vulnerable.