A broken heart is not what it might appear. After all, it should destroy us to the core, leave us empty, powerless and shattered. It can end us. But, then we continue to walk around — a shadow of our former selves, but still present, watching all of the world go on. We survive.
Instead of being enchanted, Ella is imperfect. She’s a mom, daughter, caregiver, wife, friend… she’s a character around whom the whole of a woman’s experience could be wrapped around, but she secretly feels the failures of her life: inadequacies, self-deprication, the moments when she wasn’t enough (couldn’t be). But, she’s also not the only one. She’s not really alone. She’s only one part of the story; and there’s so much more to the story…
“What-ifs multiplied like a combat-ready squad of Star Trek Tribbles: cute, furry and armed with bazookas.”
We all have those moments in our life that come back on us in force. Memories are brutal, particularly when those flashbacks haunt us with every tinge of uncertainty and indecision. We can’t go back. But, even the forward movement is tainted with the might-have-beens, or if-onlys.
“She and Harry? Their lives had been soldered together by the rainbow of special needs.”
It’s quite possible that those who’ve never experienced the complexities that are involved with parenting, and being a caregiver for, a special-needs child could never understand that statement. It’s not meant to be crass or unfeeling. Neither is it meant to be an intimation that it’s a special club to which others aren’t invited (though sometimes it feels like that). There’s a comradry in common goals, experience and condition; and it’s not an experience that most would want to intimately know.