One Word At A Time: Broken

By Ginny (MAD21)

One of the many things children have to learn while growing up is how to express the way they feel appropriately. Imagine what the world would be like if adults handled themselves the same way that a child does when they feel frustrated, angry or upset. Scary. Aside from one experience I had with a project manager throwing a temper tantrum in my office several years ago (I actually wondered if he was going to throw himself to the floor!), most adults I know handle themselves and their emotions a little more judiciously.

As a child, the first experience I can remember when I learned a hard lesson about self-control was after a particularly bad day. I don't remember the specifics, except it was a fight with my mother, but I remember the anger I felt, and the frustration in not knowing how to express it. The first thing I did was go to my room and start crying (of course). But then I noticed my box full of crayons.

I loved to color. I had tons of half colored coloring books and papers everywhere. Like most kids, I had a lot of crayons I had collected over the few years of my young life, and I had been keeping them neatly in one of my old metal lunch boxes (remember those?). For the most part I always took very good care of my belongings, including my crayons. What kid doesn't like to color with nice whole, unbroken, crayons? But in one fleeting, angry moment, I made a terrible decision, one that I could not undo.

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