Ocean Glass

I picked up a small piece of green glass and put it in my pocket.
"What's that?" my daughter asked.
"That's a piece of ocean glass," I replied.
"What's ocean glass?" she inquired.
"Ocean glass is glass that has been broken and then the ocean makes it smooth and beautiful," I said.
She picked up a piece of glass that was still quite sharp and said, "Here!"
"Oh no," I replied, quickly taking the piece from her hands. "That's still too jagged. It needs more time in the ocean. It's not ocean glass yet." And I tossed it back into the surf.

"Oh God..." I thought. "I hope I'M ocean glass..."

I am definitely broken. Am I still jagged? I certainly FEEL like I'm getting pounded and tumbled around. Is it possible I am being made smooth? "Rounding off the edges of my jagged heart," as Phil Madeira sings. Or, am I still too sharp? Needing to be tossed back into the surf again and again and again. I don't know.

I think about stuff - a lot. That's what I do. My thoughts are like pieces of glass that continue to tumble in the surf. Ask me if I've approached Richard for forgiveness and I will think about it - a lot. Question my commitment to something and I will think about it - a lot. I often have to think about things in order to figure out how I feel about them. Some times I find I'm pissed off. I don't like to be angry so I ask myself, "Why am I so mad?" And then I look at what's going on, what merit there may be to the question or comment, what's reasonable on my end to fix and what's just human about someone else and therefore mine to love/forgive/live-with/whatever.

If only I had employed such clarity in the beginning of my relationship with Richard. Perhaps we both could've avoided a lot of pain. But, it was what it was. I was who I was. I can't extract my experience(s) with Richard from who I am. Those mistakes and that pain are part of who I am now and probably part of how I am able to have more clarity in my approach to things now. Most times. I hope. I'm still human, of course.

I was fairly isolated during my relationship with Richard. I had withdrawn myself from the ocean of resources available to me. I was like one of those pieces of broken glass along the boardwalk - nowhere near the water. It's hard to say why I had become so isolated. I was certainly surrounded by people both in my work and my personal life. I had plenty of friends and family available to me. But, I had withdrawn from them on some level and slowly, progressively isolated myself.

I was lonely and self-conscious at the time I met Richard so I looked for companionship with someone also in pain. I looked for that kind of companionship UNCONSCIOUSLY, mind you. But I felt less alone being with someone who had issues. After all, I had issues, too. I think I even thought there was some redemptive quality in us being together in our broken-ness. There certainly COULD'VE been something redemptive about being together but the problem was, there wasn't. I WANTED it to be redemptive. I wanted to believe that we were this beautiful jar of ocean glass - broken pieces of sorrow and mistakes that were now worn smooth and beautiful. Weren't we lovely? If only it were as simple as WANTING it to be true.

Among the things Richard and I had in common was a shared interest in things aquatic - fish, fishing, fish-collecting, scuba diving, water gardens, etc. Perhaps it is no surprise then, that I used aquatic imagery to express my feelings about him early in our relationship. It is now almost frightening to read. Nonetheless:

Ah, the sound of water.
Thoughts of you washing over me like water.
You - washing over me like waves and like water.
Drinking you in like sweet-tasting, thirst-quenching, deliciously-nourishing water.
Swimming freely, you swim with me.
You, you, you.
Pulling me in.
Pulling me under and crashing over me.
Surrendering, I'm drowning in a sea of you.

I had been voluntarily drowning in a sea of Richard for a long time. As passionate as "drowning" in another person seemed to me at the time, I fortunately began to realize that I was drowning in a sea of CHAOS, not just a sea of Richard. And, more importantly, I realized I was DROWNING. Holding my breath for so long, I'd almost forgotten what it was like to breathe. Every wave of my separation and divorce pounded me, but at least I was beginning to gasp for air.

I told my daughter that the ocean makes the broken pieces of glass smooth and beautiful. Even if I get tossed back into the surf and tumble again and again, I trust the ocean now, in a way I never fully trusted it before, and know that eventually the edges get rounded off. So long as we stay in the ocean, the broken pieces can be made smooth and beautiful - into ocean glass.