Life Will Break You

A personal confession, beginning with a short poem by Louise Erdrich

Life will break you.

Nobody can protect you from that,

and living alone won't either,

for solitude will also break you

with its yearning.

You have to love.

You have to feel.

It is the reason you are here on earth.

You are here to risk your heart.

You are here to be swallowed up.

And when it happens that you are broken,

or betrayed, or left, or hurt,

or death brushes near,

let yourself sit by an apple tree

and listen to the apples

falling all around you in heaps,

wasting their sweetness.

Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

~ Louise Erdrich

Has life ever broken you? Yeah. Me, too. The truth is, this poem speaks to me because I am broken open right now…

By the way, this post is for paid subscribers where I reveal things more personal.  I will warn you, this post is going to end soon for the free subscriber, right where it gets to a tantalizing bit. This Substack feature gives you only a taste, so that you’ll see what you’re missing by not being a paid subscriber. (A mere $5 a month. The cost of one fancy coffee at Starbucks.) They cut you off right when I’m about to tell you a secret that only my closest family and friends know. . . .