Artifact: A worn & bent walker
Story: This isn't a heart break. This is a soul break, and some things are beyond trying to heal with your heart. Had an injury early in my dance career. Our society, family, the medical profession, and anyone I asked for help told me I was lying, discounted me, ignored my truth, my reality and an impossibility. Looking back, I realize that most thought I was mentally ill. Not only did my soul stop breathing, but my physical pain also kept increasing until this dancer was on crutches. After ACA passed all of a sudden there was a "cure", for all this hurt and denial of my gifts and my reality. With over 7 surgeries in less than two years, a physical therapy plan that was also not properly scheduled, other physical problems because of an unsuccessful first surgery, and now new body aches do to being on the damn walker and in a leg cast for years, for something that was only supposed to be for a few months, I was starting to move in my body. I was not moving as a dancer or an expressive person, of any medium, but as someone not punished just for being me, just existing in this society. A soul at the bottom of the well no more? "Can I be me?" Is it (finally) safe to be me?
I channel my soul yearnings through other things, and only talk to people who know my truth and my pass. I move carefully and sometmes dance (a little) with fear. But that's not dancing; it's not even really moving. I accept that I will dance, I will have moments and I will accept the consequences for daring to express myself in those moments. I have to be what my soul is. Some of us only get moments, if we're lucky, and some are even luckier if there are others to witness it; the moments. You are not crazy. You are not alone. But you are a lone, singular expression of the universe. DON'T EVER F#$#@$ 4GET IT. Find a way for your soul to shine. Your life depends on it.
Contributor: Anonymous. At least the surgical scars are proof that there really was something wrong, and COULD HAVE BEEN FIXED YEARS AGO, after a body was broken, a heart was broken closed, and a soul broken apart.
