Broken, but still Useful

Last week, my ex-wife’s husband was executed in the State of Alabama. You probably have already heard about it on the news, so I won’t tell you what he did. I had known about the execution since 2022 when I was first told about it by a friend. Her second husband, they married in 2021, was supposed to be executed in 2022, but there were some complications. After that, there were a series of legal battles that postponed the execution.

One of my friends asked if I was okay. Now, if you know me at all, comedy and humor are my sword and shield when life hits me the hardest. I’m sort of ashamed to say that nine times out of ten, dark humor is what I resort to. I shrugged and replied to my friend, “I didn’t know him.”

He sort of gives me an odd look, which is a common reaction to my particular brand of morbid humor and shakes his head. “I was talking about your ex-wife,” he said.

I should have known that was what he was talking about, but I almost wanted to say that I didn’t know her either. To a certain extent, I probably didn’t know her. The last time I saw her was in 2018 when we finalized our divorce. People can change a lot in five years. I know that I have.

I broke a pencil a while back. I was in my office and the computer was going inexplicably slow and I was on a deadline. I sort of wonder if computers aren’t hiding the fact that they are sentient because I swear my computer knows when I’m on a deadline because it’ll start slowing down. I was fiddling with a yellow #2 Ticonderoga and when I hovered over the command to restart, I got that spinning beach ball that we all know and love. Right in that moment my frustration and anger bubbled over, and I snapped the pencil in half. Now I held in my hands two pencils. One of them was a yellow #2 Ticon and the other was a yellow #2 Deroga.

My computer accepted the sacrifice of the pencil and restarted like nothing was wrong at all. I actually think the computer seemed perky about it.

As it rebooted, I sat there looking at the two pieces of pencil in my hands feeling horrible with myself. There’s one thing that writers don’t do, okay there are several but for the purposes of this rant I’m focusing on this one, and that’s destroy writing implements. It’s in the writer bylaws or something.

Looking around my desk, I spotted a rubber band and I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t have super glue or tape near me, and staples wouldn’t have worked. I didn’t want to just throw away a perfectly good pencil either. I’m a writer and therefore not made of money.

The sight of that pencil, broken in half with an oversized rubber band wrapped around it, stirred something inside of me. I felt exactly like that pencil. If I had remained married, we would’ve been celebrating our 15th anniversary this year. However, we made it nine years and then divorced. When that happened, I was broken. Absolutely wrecked. Back in 2009 when I married her, I had that diehard optimism that no matter what, my marriage wouldn’t go the same way my parents’ had went. I allowed a lot of stuff to transpire in those nine years simply because I didn’t want to rock the boat.

There’s a lot of memories since my wedding day that I’ve away in the deep recesses of my mind, but I can clearly remember June 22, 2018, like it was yesterday. That was the day that I snapped like my yellow #2 Ticonderoga. That was when my marriage ended.

On Facebook, I posted a picture of the pencil with the rubber band wrapped around it, adding it to my series of photos called “...For Obvious Reasons.” The title of the photo was “Broken, but still Useful.” Most of the reactions were of the laughing emoji. I don’t blame them because it’s actually funny looking. And like I said above, I’m the master of the dark humor. Some people offered advice that duct tape or super glue would’ve been better. I didn’t use those because that wasn’t the right way to repair it. If I duct taped or super glued the pencil back together again, I would’ve broken the pencil sharpener when it got time to sharpen the tip. With time, the pencil tip grew closer and closer to the scar I’d caused when I snapped it in a fit of rage.

I think most people might have thrown the pencil away, but I didn’t because:

1. It goes against the writer’s bylaws to throw away perfectly good writing implements.

2. I’m not made of money (being a writer and all). And

3. Broken things still have a purpose.

Over time, I finally got to that pencil’s scar and was able to undue the rubber band and sharpen it. And you know what? When I sharpened the “Deroga” side, it was like the snap never occurred. It was a whole pencil again.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a poem, Troilus and Criseyde, in 1380 that contains the following:

“As tyme hem hurt, a tyme doth hem cure.”

Now, if you don’t know how to read Old English, I took a class in college where I had to learn and read/speak it, it translates to: “Time is the healer of all necessary evils.”

I know that not everything can be healed by the passage of time and that everyone heals at different rates using different methods. But, for me, it took five years to become whole again. I can safely remove the rubber band without fear of coming apart. I pray that, with time, my ex-wife can heal from the terrible events of last week.

In closing, humans aren’t like pencils. We’re all made differently, but remember that just because we break... it doesn’t mean we’re useless.

For those wondering, I thought I’d switch my writing column Mastering the Craft to this column ...For Obvious Reasons. It’s going to be short form essays about pictures I take that I find interesting or thought provoking. Let me know what you think by emailing jmaster@thepilotnews.com.