Pretend your life is a chalice of crystal. You dropped it and it broke up in little pieces. You kneel down, look for them and pick them all up. Then you put all them together again, in a delicate work of glue and patience. After a long time you finish it, you've got any single piece back in its place. The result is a chalice all cracked, but still a chalice. It's your chalice. It doesn't matter if it broke for your negligence or the careless of somebody else passing by too close to you. What is important for you is that you put it together. Hasn't been a simple job.
Now you're there: your eyes burn, your finger tips sore due to the many cuts the glass shards gave you, your back is aching for bending down for so long time. You are there, watching your chalice, watching your life. And you wonder what to do of it. You are sure that you have done your job properly, that your chalice can contain liquids again. But you wonder if somebody would be available to drink from such a no more pretty chalice. And you wonder what kind of person could be who is willing to drink from it. But somebody will do it, that certainty gives you back some warmth.
And then you meet that man. His smile is heart-warming, you see a light in his eyes you've never seen before in anybody else's. You pour your finest liquor for him, you pour it into that chalice all cracked. The chalice holds, for you have worked accurately. And the man you offered it to drinks your liquor, and when he has drunk it all he stares at you. But his eyes are cold now, they have lost that light you had seen. Did you imagine that light? Was it there or was it a figment you created because you had need of it?
Does it matter now if the light was there or not? What else matters now but the fact that the man you have offered your chalice, your life, throws it away? He throws it and leaves. He throws it and it shatters in even smaller pieces which spread all over. The chalice shatters and nobody is with you any more.
You stare to all the fragments of crystal, you watch the glittering dust and it turns in a shimmering blur while the tears full your eyes up. The sobs shake you, salty tears reach your lips, but your mouth is dry and something tighten your throat choking you. It's the desperation gnawing inside you, carving you like a worm carves its way into a tree. It's the desperation which leaves you empty, unable to love, to hope or simply of flaring up. The desperation which wipes out your tomorrow.
Is it possible to put all the pieces together once again, you wonder. And even if it's possible, even if you find all the pieces, even if you pick the smallest particles of dust up, and you have all of them in your hands till the last atom, would you be able to remake the crystal this time? For how much hard you can work, for how much skilled you can be, what can you expect to put together this time? You would remake, probably, a twisted chalice, weak and with sharp edges, a chalice which would barely stay together, let alone to be able to contain liquids. And who would be willing to sip from a chalice that cuts his lips?
Have you imagined the described situation? I don't know if you who are reading have experienced the same situation or something just close to it, something which stirred the same fear in you,the fear that some one will hurt you again, the fear of failing, the fear of having nobody at your side who would take care of you for what you are, perfect and flawless chalice or cracked one. The fear that everybody will throw you away after having drunk all your liquor, will shatter you after having dried up you till the last drop. I don't know if you know these fears, if you have gather the courage to face them or if you're still sobbing in a corner. I don't know if you are one of those people able to face the pain and the strain needed to put the pieces together once more and to accept yourself whichever shape will come out this time. But what I know for sure is that there's at least one person more willing to drink from your chalice. That person will bring the sharp edge of your glass to his lips, will wound himself drinking, and smiling will give you the blood stained glass back . He will be happy with whatever you have given to him, a little or a lot, and will not demand to see the bottom of the glass. He will handle your chalice gently, will take care of it for you, and will be ready to give it back should you ask it.
I'm not speaking of a dream, I'm speaking about people I know well. People who often are just close to us, that we can find looking for them in the right places. So pick the pieces up, search and find as many as possible, but have clear in your mind that in the end it doesn't matter if you have all of them or not. Because that chalice, as weak as it will be, as ugly as it will be, can keep at least one drop of your liquor. And there are men who are happy even with one single drop, because in that drop there's all of you, there's the all universe.
And sometimes, not always but often enough, we are gifted of a new chalice, a new life.
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