Slices of Life

By: Jill Pertler

Some of us live with a hole that will never go away. It’s an emptiness that can’t be filled. A vacuum within us that’s brimming with nothingness – not even air. Just a permanent, impenetrable, infallible, deep and vast hole.

At first the hole seems immense – because it is and, honestly, it always will be because the entity that filled the hole was immense in your life and that kind of largeness doesn’t dissipate with time.

But the hole isn’t the all of us. The hole isn’t our whole. It will always be a part of us, but it doesn’t define us. It doesn’t have to. We are more than the hole – so much more.

Others see our hole and want to do something. To help. To fix. To change us – and it – in some way. It’s very hard for people without a hole of their own to understand the nature of it. How it just is, and even though it hurts sometimes the damn hole has molded us into what we are today and we wouldn’t be the same without it, nor would we want to be.

The hole doesn’t define us, but it is a part of us and that can’t be changed. Not ever, despite what others want or try to do for us.

Some think they can fill the hole for us. But it has a vastness bigger than infinity. It can never be filled because no one can ever match the exact contours and crevices of the hole’s original inhabitant. Trying to do so would be an act of no avail. It would be spinning one’s wheels at the highest revolution – with no result.

Others think they can distract us from the hole, and that may be true, at times, because distraction can be a good thing in small increments. But it isn’t the answer. Not long-term, because distraction is momentary and the hole is forever.

Some people simply pretend there is no hole. They believe if they refuse to accept its existence, perhaps we will too. This doesn’t work because pretending never solved any real problem. Not ever. Pretending is for stage plays, not real life – especially not for real life holes and real life people living in real life in real time.

Finally, they think if they wait long enough we will eventually forget about the hole. This might be the silliest conclusion of all. Forgetting about the hole would be akin to forgetting the loss that created the hole – the person lost who used to occupy the hole – and anyone who’s experienced the hole up front and personal understands forgetting is exactly the opposite of the desired outcome. Anyone who wants us to forget simply doesn’t understand.

The hole is there. It always will be. We can’t fill it. We can’t move it. We can’t change it.

But we can grow around it. We can grow not only despite but because of it. Because the hole (the damned hole) makes us who we are now and that person wouldn’t and couldn’t have existed before. Who we are now is just as much because of the hole as anything else we’ve ever known. It’s hurt us, but it’s helped us grow – maybe in that order, but not necessarily so.

The hole doesn’t define us, but we can define ourselves based, in part, on what it means in our life, and all we are and all we have become – and are becoming – because of it.

The hole will be a part of us forever. But it isn’t the end; in so many ways it is just the beginning.

Jill Pertler is an award-winning syndicated columnist, published playwright and author. Don’t miss a slice; follow the Slices of Life page on Facebook.