Dear Self,

If you keep going backwards with the same people that God has intentionally removed from your life, you will continue to stay stuck. There is no joy in being confused and unhappy. Get rid of old bad habits and leave them where they belong. What is meant for you will be yours, learn to let go. Dysfunction isn’t love.

Sincerely,

Self

For Those Who Have Been Broken,

Dysfunction isn't love.

It begins the same. Every single time. I can feel the hurt radiating off of you before I lay my eyes on you. It takes one to know one.

I see you. Your facade doesn't work on me. I see the pain when you look down at your feet to avoid the eyes of others. You are terrified to let someone really see you for fear of what they may find. Behind those eyes, you lie.

I see it in the way your smile never reaches your eyes. You force your chapped lips to curl up in the corners because you know the person you're talking to needs to see it. Beneath the smile is a hurt like none other. It strangles what little light you have left inside you every chance it gets.

But I see the light in you that lurks within the shadows of the hurt waiting for the chance to shine and it is beautiful. I want to see the good in others when they can't see it within themselves.

I see the damage someone has unleashed on you. I'm well-acquainted with the pain myself. There is a huge piece of me that has been broken as well. I'm drawn to the part of you that resembles my brokenness. I recognize, sympathize, and crave the shattered pieces found in your scarred eyes.

I want to fix it. Mending the hurt requires gorilla glue when all I have is scotch tape. I took on something that set me up to fail right from the beginning. You can't fix what's been broken. Discouragement and disappointment are the only outcomes for trying and I'm left with the pain that was already there before and then some. You live with the hurt but in time you'll learn how to not let that hurt define you.

Two negatively broken people stay broken, never complimenting each other. They wallow in the misery, unable to be truly happy so they settle for what they think they deserve. In conversations you bring each other down, burrowing further into the hurt to the point of no return. So why do we continue to hold on to the relationship that has broken us? As humans, we have one goal: to love and be loved in return. Whether we are loved by our friends, family, significant others or God we demand to be loved and the search for love never dies. We mistake dysfunction for love when it's only a disguise. It's like watering a plant that has been dead for years. Smothering it in water hoping it will spring to life when the reality of it all is that it's nothing but a dead plant. You just need to know when to walk away.

Let it go.

Buy a new plant. Water it with love and care. Be sure to avoid the mistakes that caused the old plant to die in the first place.

Sometimes holding on does more damage than letting go. We forgive the hurtful actions of others not for their sake of sleeping at night, but for ourselves, so that we may make peace with the hurt and are able to heal and move on with the rest of our lives.

Forgive but never forget.

It's okay to be broken; to be vulnerable. A deep cut is a sure sign that a scar will follow. It takes time to heal, but you will. It's inevitable. A scar is thicker tissue of the skin. You become stronger with every scar received. It's your armor.

Wear it proudly. Scars are like tattoos... just with better stories.

Sincerely,

A Broken Girl