How many whacks does it take to break open a pinata?

Yesterday afternoon, I was feeling lazy and watched a movie on Lifetime. It was a dumb movie, and by the time it was over, I wished I would have found a better way to waste two hours of time, but once I started, I couldn’t turn it off.

This has nothing to do with the plot of the movie, but one scene showed a little girl at her birthday party, and one of the activities was breaking open a piñata. Sometimes, the blindfolded birthday girl missed the piñata altogether while other swings met their mark with a quick thud that made the zebra swing and twirl at the end of the rope it dangled from. One final hard blow caused it to break open and fall, spilling all of the candy and trinkets onto the grass. The scene reminded me of Rachel’s 7^th birthday party when she insisted on having a piñata at her luau themed shindig. The darn thing would not break…girl after girl dressed in grass skirts and bikini tops swung a baseball bat at it, yet it did not break until my brother in law took the matter (and the bat) into his own hands. Once the piñata broke, each of the places where the bat had previously hit the piñata was clearly visible as dents and cracks even though they weren’t noticeable until that final violent blow sent it shattered to the patio. And once the piñata suffered that final violent blow and fell to the ground, it broke apart at all of the tiny little places that hadn’t even been visible before yet obviously had weakened it.

While I pretty much hated the movie, when I saw that blindfolded little girl haphazardly swinging at that piñata, I couldn’t help but think about how my heart is starting to feel just like that piñata…taking many little blows that on their own don’t do any visible damage to the outside world. And I can’t help but wonder how many more whacks it will take to bust it wide open. I pictured those who inflict those little blows to my heart like that blindfolded little girl—I doubt they know how much those little whacks and blows are putting tiny little cracks and dings on my heart because they cannot see them. I doubt they know that one day, it might be too violent and hard of a whack that hits just the right (or wrong) weak spot for my heart to recover from and everything might come spilling out into a messy heap around me. And just like a broken piñata, or Humpty Dumpty, it won’t be able to be put back together again.

I read something not long about the resilience of the human spirit—how we can recover and heal from things that we think will break us. I’m not sure I agree with that. Just because the scars aren’t visible, doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Just because to the outside world, we look fine, doesn’t mean there is not a part of us that truly is broken.

And broken things cannot be unbroken.

You can’t un-break a piñata. You could probably stuff everything back inside and glue or tape it back together, and it may even look fine from a distance. But get too close, and the tears and breaks and tape will be obvious. And, once it is glued or taped back together, it won’t take much of a whack to break it wide open again.

You also can’t un-break a broken spirit or a broken heart. The tiny cracks…the larger fissures…the still larger holes will always be there. So will the tape used to repair those cracks and fissures and holes. Maybe they won’t be visible to the casual observer but they will be there nonetheless. And once the “repairs” are complete, it will still be a broken heart or spirit that is now more fragile and susceptible to being broken again.

Years ago, I read something in a book by Richard Paul Evans that had such an effect on me that I wrote it in my quote collection. I think of it often. The hardest shells often protect the softest hearts.

Sometimes, I wish I could grow a harder shell. Unfortunately, a hard shell doesn’t just keep out the bad stuff. It keeps out the good stuff as well.

This is a really depressing thing I have written. It’s hard to not write depressing things after my family once again let me down…showed me that my kids and I are really not all that important to them. The details don’t matter. It’s just the same shit, different day. Same whacks to the same soft heart. Some days, I'm not sure there is a shell hard enough to protect it. 

I will switch gears now and end this on a positive note.

A month or so ago, we bought Justin a new phone from Best Buy as a graduation present. There was a special promotion going on at the time, and he received a $50 Best Buy gift card. I told Justin after he used it that he had to keep it and give it to me. I have kept it propped up in my kitchen window sill ever since.

Is that not awesome?

Since I spend a great deal of time in my kitchen, I see it multiple times a day; it is a good reminder to me to keep my thoughts where they should be.

So, I got the whiney, pathetic, depressing thoughts out of my head, and will put the focus back on the good things about Justin’s party on Saturday. If I ignored the dark cloud that hung over the day, it was a great party.

I’ll just make a list of them!

*All of the friends that he wanted to come, did. They stayed all day, ate tons of food, played Frisbee, ate more food. It was nice.

*Justin’s best friends’ Sam/Sarah came with their parents, Karen and Mario. Those two are so wonderful--they have grown to love Justin and treat him as part of their family. Karen had tears in her eyes at one point when she said how lonely they are all going to be when Sam goes off to college and Justin joins the Navy. I can tell that she is genuinely going to miss him, and wow, that did my heart good.  She also told me that when Justin went to their house to tell them he had enlisted in the Navy that Mario immediately shook his hand and said how proud he was of him. Karen said, “I wish you could have seen the look on Mario’s face. It was that of a proud dad.” I cried.

I’ve cried a lot the past couple of days, but those were definitely some happy tears.

*My cousin and her family came. I don’t see them often, and I wish I did. I love her dearly and her husband and girls, too. They stayed late and we laughed and drank some wine and watched our French student teach her little girl some hip hop dance moves.

I cried when they left.

There’s a pattern here…

*At nearly 11 Saturday night I was exhausted, yet my house was still full of kids. I was so tired I wanted to cry. Instead of crying, I went out to my porch, cracked a window in the living room and listened to the happy laughter and chatter of the teenagers in my house making a mess with their second round of cake and ice cream in the kitchen that I had just cleaned up not an hour before. And I cried again because I know that these days are numbered. I cried because even though it was a day of feeling down about the way my family treats me, it was also a day that Justin thoroughly enjoyed, and I told myself that was the most important thing of all.

*Sunday morning at 5 am, Tony, Justin, Erwan and Lauren left to drive to New Orleans. I went out to help pack the trunk, and they all piled in the Chevy Malibu that Tony leased for the week, and I again found myself becoming teary eyed for no reason at all. The kids were packed in the car with their pillows, blankets and iPods when Justin suddenly got out of the car, gave me a hug, and said “thank you so much for the graduation party. It was awesome!” After that, Lauren and even Erwan got out of the car and gave me a hug. And guess what I did??

Yep. I cried AGAIN.

I feel like a 13 year old going through puberty.

I don’t know how to end this. I don’t want to end it on the depressing note that I began it with, that’s for sure. I guess it’s okay to be happy and sad at the same time, right?