The Meaning of Glue
I am hoping if you read this that you will have also read my first piece. Though this story can stand alone, it does follow metaphors about breaking, fixing, mending. And glue!
I can tell that right now, I am full of very nervous energy. The source? A break up that I am navigating through, as well as some remnants of the grief I feel for my dad who passed away some 10 months ago. A double bereavement of sorts.
And yes, in the last day, I broke more stuff. A water glass shattered as I was making myself a drink, loading the glass with a large piece of ice. I was quite happy with the ice cube – an unusual sentiment – because it was quite a large and perfect 5 cm sphere (then technically not a cube). So I was proudly looking at it and I guess I let it land less than delicately in its intended container and instantly breaking this one in three neat pieces. Damned. I liked that glass. I have a couple of other ones left but I can’t fix this at all.
I am just looking at it thinking… more breakage?!?!
In that moment, I identified this incident as something else. Something bigger than the trivial.
My reflection went beyond. It was no longer about heart break, or about break down, something was indicating a possible break-through. Perhaps several.
I have been having a pretty tough time over the last couple of weeks. Accepting this, I thought it good to lean on a coach, who has spiritual and physchological credentials. While navigating my emotions and feelings with her, with great care, I suddenly put my attention on this desire of mine to fix things and it led me to the word glue. The thing that helps fix the ceramic I wrote about in my earlier article. And the meaning of glue, for me.
You see, I should explain a little about my childhood. I grew up in a loving family which sadly went through a lot of pain, hardship and trauma. Trauma that I thought I had dealt with but maybe not all was tidy in the home that is my self.
My mother was probably depressive all of her life, but her depression became perceptible for me, her child, around the time I turned 11 years old. I found her in the living room, not able to lift herself up, in the middle of the afternoon. I had no idea why. She was crying, saying she was tired and that she was sorry she was a bad mum, could I just help her into bed. It was really hard to carry her up the stairs but I managed, she would rest and be more or less okay later. The incidents multiplied. I was mostly alone when it happened because my school finished before my little brother, who was 9 at the time. It took me a few days or weeks to figure out she was drinking. And I don’t know how much later I learned she had been put under anti-depressants and the cocktail of drink and drugs made it impossible for her to function.
The thing about families is that we all play a certain role in them. You find your space and you define a certain identity, which you might embrace and carry into the world for the rest of your life. And in my household, I was the glue. The glue between a doting but sometimes hard, older father, who was breaking down from seeing the love of his life destroy herself and push him away. A younger brother himself a little fragile and with the same depressive tendencies as my mother, who didn’t know how to express himself. And a mother who repeatedly tried to take her own life.
So years later, from a humble start in retail in my hometown of Geneva, I inadvertently got myself into a pretty successful career for a wonderful French Luxury shoe designer, for whom I continued to be the glue. I was nicknamed the fixer by a couple of friends. I was known as the one who made things happened, who connected the dots, the people, and made sure things would unfold as they should.
My ability to fix, glue, connect, has propelled me into an amazing life and into relationships with friends met during my travels across the world, making it possible for me to find a real soul tribe.
Also it helped keep me, my self, together, all the broken pieces of me, despite the general hardships of life over the years. And today, as my heart is broken, broken open, this flow of life is coming through. And with it the notion that despite the fact it has served me so far, it’s time to let go of this old identity. This old me, which no longer serves a purpose.
With the signals or signs of both the real breaks and the metaphors, I have moved on from fixing. My new identity is about being fully open to what is. Open in each moment, open to the other. Open to seeing myself, fully.
Many times in guided meditations I have heard mindfulness teachers talk about opening to loving awareness. This notion is now becoming enmeshed with me, though I am still grasping sometimes at old habits. The words have found their way through me.
Grief. The process of letting go is intense, the ups and downs, the flurry of emotions, the bio-chemicals pumping through the body. It’s a wild ride.
But as I write today, I am embracing the moment, the process, the opening as fully as I can. I am releasing, I am shedding the old skin.
This quote from my meditation and mindfulness teacher Tara Brach, which I heard just the other day, feels particularly fitted to what I am going through. No coincidences there in terms of timing. It is from Frederich Nietzsche:
“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”
So I am casting my skin and hoping that I can stay fully open, fully present and loving this powerful human experience, through all of it. Because it is a privilege to be here.
I thank my lucky stars, because at the heart of it is the essence of life, love, which is breaking me wide open. Pulsating through me, making my heart beat faster and filling me with butterflies, strength and hope.
