To Break without going to Pieces.

I sometimes look back at my school experince with regret. Regret for all the things I didn't do, things I never accomplished. I was never on any sports team. I never got the lead in the school play. I never really stood out from among my peers. Now I consider myself a pretty clever guy. I always was. I don't pride myself on to many things, but my wits is one area that I do. It seems to me that someone clever as I am should have made something more of his life than what I did in school.

I remarked on these feelings to my Mom one day when I was feeling rather low about myself. Because it really hurt that I had lead such an uneventful existence. That day my Mom said something that has stuck with me ever since.
She said "You surrvived, that's all you could do."

It had never hit me the way it hit me then. My schooling was not a pleasant exeperince. In fact it was awful. Everyday was torture. Every. Day.

Survival was a mircale. It was all that I could do. More than what I could have hoped for. For a decade or so I learned how to break without going to pieces. I was broken by my expeneices, but I kept it together.