I roll one of my kitchen cabinet drawers open. It’s a side cabinet that I barely use since it’s awkward.

I see shards of glass and open it even further to inspect. A simple, glass, Lenox bowl that we received as a wedding present is broken in half. I am once again fighting tears. All I can think is, “Really, really?” How much more of the past twenty some years has to be disassembled?

I know it seems silly. It is just a bowl. It reminds me of when my sister once told me that people think to leave marriages all the time and then one day they get up and leave because their spouse leaves the cap off of the toothpaste. There are moments when small things take on huge proportion.

I have never been a pack rat. I am the opposite of that. I hate clutter. My friend “Trixie” says it’s the creative side of me that makes me that way. I think she is correct. Therefore, I am not a hoarder of things. The only things I tend to keep are things I am sentimental about or decorations because I love a good holiday and a good party. Well at least I used to pre-divorce.

It’s just that serendipity has brought many broken pieces of my life forward in this divorce. I lost my gold wedding band. Again, silly because I AM getting a divorce. Only that band meant something to me. Standing in that church and that simple gold band was more important than my diamond engagement ring. That’s saying a lot because I am a jewelry whore. I love anything that sparkles. It was something I was not prepared to lose.

Then just a short while ago, I spent days unpacking things that I had stored away. An exercise in purging and starting over, only to find many of our wedding presents had broken while in storage.

I meet my friend “Crystal” for coffee this morning.

Crystal is as strong as she is caring. We chat about this contradiction of strengths. How it makes it harder to move forward from those we love. How we can allow hurt in when it’s already reached its toxic limit…‘caring gluttons for punishment.’

“I think if everything in my life wasn’t breaking apart (literally), I wouldn’t be able to stop caring enough to move forward,” I say.

“That’s interesting,” says Crystal. Her eyes well temporarily with water. “It’s hard to not care.”

Yes, it is hard to not care

Only there comes a time that we need to care enough about ourselves to self-protect from others who may not have cared enough about us to begin with.

Who could see the literal break in our hearts as clearly as the broken shards of glass…if only they cared.

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