Questions on Breaking that Break.

Every day, we meet people. It’s the new acquaintance in class, the guy working at the coffee shop, etc. But usually, we don’t communicate. It’s a silent acknowledgement in which a comfortable distance is maintained. 

The other day, we visited some art students in Jaipur. Keep in mind, I’m not an artist. I had some time, so I did some writing while I listened to our roundtable discussion. After the chat, a man came up to chat about my writing/drawing. He was a very nice man who was also a writer. 

After a few minutes, he asked if he could ask a personal question. I said why not? 

He asked me at what moment I broke. 

And then I stopped. 

I suppose most people would struggle understanding what he was trying to ask, and then muddle through trying to make up an answer to get out of the question. 

I stopped out of shock that he asked the question. But I knew the answer. In a matter of seconds I could recite the answer and the story. I was about minutes from being able to recall the date and the time. If I would have had the time, I could have told him the story for hours describing the minutia of the scenario and how it happened. 

Of course, I didn’t. I just gave the brief synopsis. 

But then I had an epiphany. 

It wasn’t the person who broke me. It wasn’t the time. It wasn’t the place. It wasn’t a lot of things. It was simply the words. 

For the sake of anonymity and such, I’ll leave out who said what. But the point is, I knew it all. Every detail. And it was the words said. 

There’s two points to this. 

(And a side note - how did he know I was broken? But anyways, moving on). 

One, what breaks. It’s the words. It’s when something that should be neutral becomes so violent and destructive. It’s something you hear and can’t unhear. And I’m still thinking about how those words still ring in my head. 

Two, the questions we ask. I meet people all the time, and I ask vague questions. Where are you from, how old are you, what are you interested in, etc. And those are good to start, for sure. And when I get to know someone, I ask some of the hard questions. But this man jumped right to the hard question. And somehow I felt safe enough to answer. But I’m curious. Why don’t we ask the hard questions sooner? And if we do, why are we so afraid to truthfully answer? Why do we have walls around us that continue to grow tall? 

I’m still thinking about this conversation. I will probably never forget it. I think his words will ring in my head as much as the words I replied to him. 

In some ways, I’m a bit proud of myself that I’ve come to the point in my life that I know the answer and can repeat it. Keep in mind, it’s been three years in the making. And I know I have my walls, and I’m still working on pulling them down. But I tend to think they would come down if someone asked me the hard questions.

And I wonder if I could help someone else if I asked the hard questions too. 

So, let me ask: when did you break?