03/09/2026
Sometimes life doesn’t fall apart…
Sometimes it falls into pieces.
And for a long time I thought the goal was to put everything back together exactly the way it used to be.
The same picture.
The same story.
The same version of me.
But the truth I’m learning is this:
Sometimes the picture was never meant to be rebuilt.
Sometimes the pieces are there so you can create something entirely new.
So I started asking myself…
What if the breaking wasn’t the end?
What if it was the chrysalis?
What if becoming requires a little time in the goo before the wings?
That thought turned into this poem.
And the quote on the image below might be my favorite line of all:
“Piece by piece… I am becoming something new.”
⸻
Piece by Piece Becoming
Shattered by seasons,
fractured by flame,
life took the picture
and scattered the frame.
My life like a puzzle
was spilled on the floor,
each moment a fragment
of life from before.
I gathered the pieces
spread out all around,
I held them in wonder
and studied what I’d found.
I sat in the quiet
and turned them in light,
some heavy with shadow,
some glowing and bright.
Some hold the laughter
that carried me through,
some hold the storms
that I barely outgrew.
Some taste of sorrow,
bitter and true,
some shine with beauty
I never yet knew.
A laugh from a summer,
a tear from a fall,
a promise once whispered
that echoes through all.
A road I once traveled,
a door left behind,
a lesson that carved
a new shape in my mind.
Some pieces are patience
I learned how to grow,
some pieces are truths
I was frightened to know.
Some pieces are courage
that rose in the night,
some pieces are sparks
that refused to lose light.
Here lies the courage
forged under strain,
here lies the wisdom
carved out of pain.
Here lies the fury
that opened the door,
here lies the voice
that is silent no more.
I thought I was meant
to rebuild what had been,
to follow the pattern
that lived on the lid.
But puzzles are funny—
they rarely restore
the image you had
when you opened the door.
The pieces remember
what the picture could not:
the strength in the cracks,
the lessons they taught.
That breaking a life
is not breaking the heart—
with patience and love
new wholeness can start.
And slowly it dawned
as the picture took form—
the old one was never
the shape I was born.
I stared at the fragments
spread wide at my feet,
and wondered if broken
could still be complete.
Because sometimes the breaking
is part of the art,
a chrysalis moment
that softens the heart.
Where everything certain
dissolves into free,
like caterpillars dreaming
of wings still to be.
So piece after piece
I arranged them anew,
not life returning—
but rising more true.
And now when I step back
and look at the view,
the puzzle looks nothing
like life that I knew.
Yet something inside it
is brighter to see—
a pattern of promise
unfolding in me.
Not the woman I was,
nor the one I once knew—
but the woman still becoming,
piece by piece…
into something new.
