Broken beauty

I am flawed. I’ve been broken more than once. It took a while to get used to owning my bruised parts, because true success has always been the pursuit of perfectionism. 

I started to not recognize myself. I found I was walking through life without depth or emotion - I was a shell of a being and felt mostly numb; hidden from everyone.  

One day I decided to try something new. I’d walk around town with my camera and would document items that spoke to me. I would clear my head of clutter and try to activate the eyes in my heart. It became a healing exercise that would ground me to my soul. 

When bruises heal, they cause us to discover new parts of ourselves. If we are able to see the layers of pain and joy from our past, our present becomes much more clear. 

We can learn to thrive in the present with remarkable clarity. That’s what a cancer diagnosis did for me and I’ll forever be grateful.