For the Love of Words: Fragile

I am learning to love myself through words.
I've loved words since I found my free will, and have since wielded them to reaffirm, confront, comprehend, or escape my emotions; yet I've yet to seek self-love through their hums and vibrations.

I recently received a package.  It contained a beautiful mug made by Allison Fretheim Ceramics.  I found her work via a witchy subscription box, another effort to reconnect with myself and beliefs.  I missed my first opportunity to own a piece of her art, but waited for the next series, and collected my handmade vessel.  It has moons, and dots as constellations surrounding it.  It will hold all my "potions" and potions, and each sip from it will help me find me.

I mention it, however, not just to share a beautiful piece of art, nor my love of the moon and all things celestial, but because of the box it came in.  You see, she puts care into all that she assembles, even the packaging.  The mug was snug and even wrapped with twine and flowers, like something only fitting of Amélie.  My name was written on the box, and the sides were stamped with a moon...and the word "fragile."

Fragile.

I have stared at this word for the last week.  I couldn't bring myself to toss the box in with the rest of my recycling.  There was something about the word...

I am fragile.  My joints ache and degrade like an elderly person.  Most of my body attacks itself and my remedy is to kill my white blood cells, which reversely makes it easier for me to get and stay sick.  I should've died when I was twelve.  Every day since has been sustained solely by modern medicine and my stubborn tenacity to live.  I know that I am strong; a word I once hated because it mostly means endurance...yet I've learned to wear "strong" as a badge of honor...but fragile...

Fragile I've seen as weak.  My sensitivity I've learned as a flaw.  The hardest part being that it wasn't a choice.  Fragile is a state.  This mug, my joints, even my emotions, are fragile by nature; but what I've realized this week, staring at this stamped word, is that their fragility doesn't make them any less powerful.

This mug may be fragile, but it literally helps nourish me.  It makes me feel connected, even just to those who have seen and admire the art sculpted into it.
Being fragile is not something I need to feel ashamed of.   It may limit me physically, but it doesn't diminish who I am and the light I wish to bring to this world.

Just as this mug, with its unique grooves and textures wouldn't compare if were it made of plastic or something more durable, I wouldn't be me without that which makes me fragile.  It doesn't make me weak, nor inadequate.  It is just part of my reflection.  And just as when I look into the mirror and I see my curly hair or how my smile touches my eyes, I will see this word and remember that it is a trait of the self that I love.

[the mug, the flowers and the word]