Soul Searching

She slipped through my fingers and shattered on the ground, and teary-eyed, I tried to throw her away instead of fixing her. Putting the remains of something precious in a plastic bag, I kept searching for mechanics and engineers and scientists to reengineer her, make her better. Adding screws, hammering nails, I saw the new holes and gossamer cracks as progress, and kept insisting that someone else heal her, correct her, restore her to who I once recognized and loved. They tried their best, but their sharp piercing tools just made blood gush from the seams and tears outline her armor.

She needed me and I was too busy overlooking her, wedging myself into the next project, the next story, the next problem, the next app that will let me become someone else. Despite knowing I should love her, I shook her blue fingers from my ankles and tried desperately to run from her as if we were not connected by heartstrings. I'd assure her someone would fix her eventually as I grabbed my toolbelt and went to sodder someone else together. I wondered how she felt, watching me leave again, feeling me stomp on her again and again. Lonely, she crawled into a forgotten recess of my mind and died.

There were no words or feelings between us in years. When the light at the end of the tunnel would shine through, I would catch a glimpse of the fading silhouette and think briefly of her. Yet, as soon as that light turned into a train, I was too busy fighting for my sanity and my existence to give a damn about her. I knew I needed her, that she was as much a part of me as my skin or my blood, but I was too busy saving them from myself to ever think about her. She went from being someone I knew like the back of my hand to a half-eaten, half decayed doorstop.

It was a few years ago when I went off the rails and went searching for something I was unable to connect with through acts of kindness and (quite literally) tearing myself apart. She was there, long forgotten, gripping to life. I wept when I saw her there, practically a skeleton with everything I hate about myself exaggerated. My heart was suddenly full of melancholy and surprise that I had even found her, and I knew everything I had been shoving myself into had taken me further from her. I took her and put her on life support, cried, screamed, and even prayed a bit.

When she opened her eyes after months of trying in any way I could to nourish her, I could see clearly again. I threw the mounds of activist buttons away, cut off all of the friends I had made who only talked to me when they needed something, and sheared away at my life until I had what was important. Yet, it was too late. I still feel her emotions despite our reunion. I still cry in the middle of the night from being abandoned. I still feel the scratches on my wrist and neck any time I feel as though I am incompetent. I still have to fight to feel worthy of anything and force myself to do anything even remotely like self-care. Some parts of me go into old habits, following the self-care routines of others and nonstop comparing myself to them and what they are doing, but she pulls me off of the tracks before the train comes and pushes me off course again.

At times, I look at her and don't recognize her, and I can see she feels the same. Even though we are the same person, we never functioned as one. After the time apart, I thought we would always be disjointed and off-kilter. Yet, the hajj seems to be ending and the pride in succeeding overtakes the pain and anguish I have felt through my body and soul through my whole pilgrimage. Though, as I get closer to the finish line, I find myself stopping to think what will happen when we are truly united again, have nothing holding us apart, and have to deal with the joys and pitfalls of being successful. I wonder what I have lost on this journey and if I will ever see it again. I ponder things that I would never think of before and try to prepare for whatever the future holds, yet I know that confidence was one of the first things to go, and I wonder how I will continue this journey without it.