Picking up the pieces

The most precious gift you have to offer someone is your heart.

This is true. It's pretty and red and full of love and hope. And when you actually offer it to someone, you do it with both hands, holding it carefully. Because although it's bright red and full of hope and all that, it's still like glass.

Inevitably, you'll end up giving it to someone clumsy. They might bobble your heart, or drop it. It might crack. They are quick to apologize, though, helping you to pick up any pieces, and fixing the cracks. And you go on, fixed and happy, all is well.

Or.... they will take it and actually shatter it into pieces, like they threw it down on the ground, breaking it into more pieces than you thought it could have, leaving you to try to collect the bits alone and put them back together.

And you do. Because you can't breathe with your heart in all these pieces. You slowly put it back together with the glue of friendship, work, cat kisses (or dog kisses, either way, they make amazing glue!), and the strength you pull from the pieces that are left.

But, like a broken cup, you never find all the pieces. Not without help. Sometimes a friend will stumble across a random chip that you can tuck back in, getting you back together.

Or, you'll discover that the person who took the most precious thing you owned and shattered it like a bar glass has kept a piece of it. They'll stand before you, dangling it between their fingers like a treat, trying to coax you to them, offering your whole heart back.

That's when you have to decide what to do.

Do you reach for that missing piece, or do you realize that sometimes the greatest works of art are missing a piece or two.