Fragility.

One of our students came in tonight to tell me that she was in a car accident.  I met this woman (she's truly a woman, and one of the few students older than me) a few days ago, and the first thing that struck me, hard and in the face, was how utterly fragile this person is.  She's jittery, nervous and can barely look up past the floor.  She has a hard time putting together more than two or three sentences.  One can't help but wonder what would ever occur to this person to attend an acting school. 

Her car accident, even hours later, certainly did not improve matters for her.  She was on the verge of tears, could barely breathe and was obsessively rifling through her wallet for some mysterious item that she couldn't find and was never produced.  Here is a woman who can barely deal with normal day-to-day activities and her world was made infinitely worse today by metal meeting metal.

Most of us have plenty of issues that we're dealing with; some of us the kinds of problems that could tempt us to seriously consider putting a bullet in our brains.  Yet, we still manage and even strive to project normalcy to those around us.  When I meet someone like this woman, who can barely hold her shit together in the best of times, my mind is blown thinking about what must have occurred to her to bring her to this place.  What abuse has she suffered, what losses has she experienced, and what horrendous pain has life drug her, screaming and kicking, through?  I also wonder who she may have been had she had a life filled with love, hope, peace and fulfillment. 

Truly, there but by the grace of God go I.  Though I have faced many challenges in my life, I feel so lucky that I haven't experienced anything near the kinds of horrors that this poor soul bleeds through her pores every single day, and in every single way.

~Jenn