People often ask if you see the glass as half empty or half full, and your answer supposedly says something about whether you're an optimist or a pessimist. But what if the glass is broken?
While cleaning my kitchen today, I ran across yet another piece of the pink wine glass I threw across the room when I learned about my husband's two-year affair. I remember the exact date--January 9--so I find it somewhat remarkable that I'm still picking up significant size pieces in mid-April. Today's fragment was hiding along the baseboard behind a silk plant in a milk can--and yes, I do sweep behind things. That's what's so odd about the whole thing--I've cleaned that kitchen a million times since I broke that glass, and pieces are still turning up.
Which brings me back to the question. I've never been able to decide whether the glass is half full or half empty, but when it shatters into a million pieces, spilling wine across the floor like blood pouring from the open artery of my heart, it’s completely obvious that something valuable is broken. That's how its shattering felt—as if the person I loved and trusted most in the world had taken a knife and sliced into my primary lifeline, draining not only blood but everything that made my world important. It's pretty much felt that way ever since.
Throwing the glass didn't even begin to ease the pain. From there I went straight into a fetal position, crying, screaming, never even realizing I hadn't hung up the phone so he could hear it all. I doubt at that point I would have cared, but I might have thought, at least, that hearing that kind of anguish, he would come and check on me—especially since he only lived three blocks away. Instead he called my friend and sent her. Would I still be here if he hadn't? Who knows, with all that broken glass lying around? At any rate, she did come and by the time she got there the second phase of shock had set in. My nausea and I just wanted to be alone in the bathroom. She understood, and I must have seemed coherent enough to be left alone, because she went and promised to call me later.
What happened next wasn't pretty, but I'm going to write it down because it's real. I've never had much success with throwing up, so that night I mostly just heaved nothing—but when I finally felt it coming, lying on my bed, I knew I'd never make it back to the bathroom. So I grabbed the nearest blanket and let everything I'd been holding inside for the past two years come out. There it was--the terrible ugly truth that maybe on some level I'd suspected but would never have had the courage to look in the face. He betrayed. He lied. He cheated. Shaken to the core the shock of it all, I took my blanket and got in the shower, clothes and all, and I sat there trembling until the water began to warm me up. After, I toweled myself dry then climbed into bed and slept. What else is there to do when everything you believe in is suddenly strewn in pieces across the floor?
I'll skip the particulars of the next days and weeks and now, although I am beginning to mend. I think. It's those darn errant pieces that keep throwing me off. Every time I find one, I remember. I remember the nights we made dinner together and shared wine in that glass and its mate. I remember the long serious talks we called our 'wine conversations.' I remember sipping wine with him on our screened-in porch, our cats lazily holding court over the lush back yard that was our personal kingdom. I remember saving those glasses for us when we had guests, my way of showing our shared union. I remember opening a bottle and pouring him a glass when he walked in from work, ready to share my day and hear about his. I remember all this, and more.
There's only one glass left now, and when I drink from it, I never fail to remember how I lost the other. For some reason, maybe because the glass is so beautiful, I can't bear to throw it away. It's the palest pink with tiny flower etchings in its glass and a very light green stem. Pink and green, long my favorite colors. There's a tiny little nick on the mouth, so I have to be careful not to drink from that spot, else I cut my lip and find I can still bleed after all. Maybe I keep it to remind me that even though I'm alone, I deserve to sip my wine from a beautiful glass, even if right now it's a glass aching with memories of happier days.
The broken glass was beyond repair the minute it hit the floor. Always fragile, perhaps it would never have lasted forever. But I tried my best to care for it, keep it safe, to honor the beauty and companionship it brought into my life. Now it's gone, and there's nothing I can do to fix it, or change what’s happened, or bring it back. I’m learning a lot about what I can and cannot control. But I’m also learning something else—while I still have a glass, I must continue its safekeeping, honoring its beauty, sharing its wine and conversations—even if I do that with someone who drinks from a different kind of glass.
Sometimes my own glass is half empty, sometimes it's half full, and it's always got that little nick so it'll never be perfect. But at least for today, and hopefully tomorrow, it's not broken.
**NOTE: I let Evangeline have this one, because I thought the metaphor was so fitting. Maybe sad, but hopeful too.
