Broken Pieces

I sit amidst the noise of a college coffee shop, and with my feet propped up on the chair across from me I lean back leisurely in this relaxed environment. Silence is unheard of in such a place and I am truly bombarded with sounds from every direction. The voices of students and professors bantering about group projects, studying Spanish vocabulary, and discussing the latest world catastrophes are all mingling with the sounds of grinding coffee beans and sudden outbursts of laughter. These noises create a musical tapestry which illustrates what life is like here. I sit here, and yet I am not here. A part of me is –yes- but not all of me. In the midst of this cacophony of overwhelming stimuli my mind has travelled to another place. As I sit here among my peers, I feel quite unconnected and even solitary. I just watched a close friend of mine walk away; walk away toward something unexpected, hurtful, and life altering. Walk away for perhaps the last time –ever. He walked away from me like others have done before, but as he walked away I felt the piece of my heart that he carries with him grow evermore distant. I could almost make out the thin line tying the empty crevice within myself to that piece of my heart he holds as the line stretched, bent, and was pulled further away from its original home. At that moment I realized something; I realized that I have thin -almost too thin to be any more than imagined- lines connecting pieces of my heart to their broken places within my chest. I could feel, all the more keenly at that moment, how bits of my heart had been torn out and handed to so many places and people in the world. I could feel where I had timidly handed a part of myself to a person, or a group of people, in my life, and I knew in that instant that my heart would only continue to be further pulled apart. I knew right then that I would never have all the pieces of my heart in one place again as long as I was on this earth. I discovered in that moment that I possess a broken heart. Yet, there is still one who can hold my heart. There is still one who deserves all of its broken pieces, and who asks for them. In return I ask Him –I plead with Him- to carry my heart even as it is dispersed around this big, blue marble we call “home.” I implore Him to fill all the empty spaces within me so that I never run out of heart to give, and that I am giving His heart along with mine. So, I sit here in this lighthearted –ha- atmosphere and soak in my surroundings. For you see, while I am here, I am not really here. My mind has travelled to a place far distant and I sit here among my peers feeling unconnected and solitary.