So this happened today.

I had been planning on writing a blog post about the New Year,and the importance of rituals when entering new spaces, and then, while in the middle of an online retreat, my pen rolled off my desk, and broke into pieces.

I am not one for attachment to material goods.

I didn’t use to be this way but, as I have gotten older, I have come to realize that things are just things. They can have memories attached to them, they can be useful, they can even be sentimental, but if something happens to them, it will still be okay.

And then my pen broke.

I stood at my sink, fingers soaked in purple ink, and cried. I realized, that of all the many things I possess, this was possession that I was actually attached to.

My pen goes everywhere with me, and it has written every poem and journal page I have put on paper in the last twenty-plus years.

It was a gift from my father, which sounds sentimental enough but there is more behind that story.

My father and I did not get along when I was growing up - for many reasons.

When I had entered my early adult years, my father gave me this pen.

He received many gifts through his work, and for some reason, people liked to give him pens. I think he passed them on to me because he didn’t know any other way to communicate with me at the time, but he knew that I loved pens. And so each time he got a new, unique pen, he would give it to me. We did little talking in those days, so the pens sort of did the talking for us.

Of all the pens he gave me, this beautiful and simple Montblanc, was the one that fit. It had a thicker barrel which made it easier for me to hold, and the nib was nice and wide.

Ink just flowed out of it with perfect ease.

There was a wonderful little ritual that went along with using it. First, I had to fill it from my bottle of purple ink, turning the cap to suck the ink up into the ink well. Then, the nib had to be wiped off with a paper towel. Each fill had enough ink to last about three to four pages. And then the ritual would be repeated, allowing my thoughts to catch up with my hand.

A little over a year ago, we gave up on single use plastic, and stopped using disposable plastic baggies of any sort - except for with my ink bottle. It was the only way to make sure it could travel with me and not leak all over my belongings.

So into my purse would go my beloved pen, and into my checked bag would go my jar of purple ink, double bagged in Ziploc, and tucked into the center of clothes to cushion it.

I sometimes wondered if my creative muse actually lived in that pen. I certainly hope not now.

One thing you might not know about fountain pens is that they get better with age.

They are sort of like a cast-iron skillet that needs to be seasoned over time. The more you use the pen, the more it becomes used to your style of writing, and the nib forms to your movements.

This pen had over twenty years of seasoned use under its belt.

And for someone like me, who has had trouble writing with a pen and forming discernible letters (a disability that I have had ever since I was refused the left-handed scissors and forced to use my right hand as young girl) this pen offered me a way to put words on paper that didn’t exhaust my hand, or become so illegible that it looked like scribbles jotted down on a page.

It takes a lot of effort to get my hand to form a letter, a skill practiced exhaustively over many years of denied recesses when I was in grade school, and filled with all sorts of trauma because I couldn’t make my hand write – and this pen seemed to understand that - cooperating instead of throwing fits like most other writing objects.

But, all is not lost – I hope.

I am going to send the pen into the Montblanc repair center and see if it can be fixed. If not, I am hopeful that the nib can be transferred to a similar model that will experience another three decades, or more, of life.

In a world of disposable everything, I am beyond grateful for a company that still cares enough to fix things that break, and let them live again. So you ask, what does this have to do with New Years?

Why burden you with my loss when you are just getting settled into your new resolutions and fresh clean starts?

I have been wondering that same thing to be honest.

I think that part of me needed to share my loss with a community that loves and cares for me. To let you know that something dear to me has been lost, and might be gone forever. That maybe you would understand my sadness.

But I think the bigger part of me, the part still focused on getting a fresh start to the New Year, felt that it was a timely reminder.

That amidst all the resolutions and fresh starts that we begin with the New Year, we need to also be reminded that sometimes, things break.

It just happens.

It is one of the reasons we have New Year resolutions in the first place – we recognize that something in our lives is not whole, and we want to fix it - make it more complete.

So I sit here with my broken pen – trying not to put too much meaning into its breaking right on the cusp of a new year (I am sure that has got to mean something, right?).

And I am trying to remember that even though things break – things can also be mended.

Maybe not in the way we want them to be mended, and maybe never to the way they were before.

That there are times when we can’t bring back what we’ve lost, and we can’t erase all the pain and suffering that we’ve experienced. But, through some mystical, miracle of the university, we can slowly stitch and mend things back together in a new and different way.

I am reminded of the Japanese art of Kintsugi, which repairs broken pieces of pottery with gold, silver or platinum - the shiny new substance filling in the cracks, and making the piece not only stronger, but more beautiful as well.

I am thinking of my relationship with my father that was broken in so many ways, but now has found a way to be mended, and stitched back together, so that now we can actually exchange words and experiences - not just pens.

I am thinking of all the stories I have heard of resilience, and perseverance, and forgiveness that take my breath away at their scope and depth.

You too have those stories that boost you up, and give you courage, when all seems lost and shattered beyond repair.

I am hopeful that my pen will be repaired back to its original state. But I am also preparing myself for the possibility that it will not be fixed.

That it is possible that something completely new will come out of it, something that I can’t even begin to imagine yet. I will just have to wait and live into that future.

But for now I am giving myself permission to lament for a bit longer.

To feel my sadness, and know that whatever happens, it will never be the same as it was before.

As we enter a new year (and a new decade) my hope is that it will contain only joy, and love, and peace for you. That it will be full of completed resolutions and perfect wholeness.

But the realistic me, the one that sees the world with a cup half empty, knows that your year ahead will also include things that break. Losses that cannot be replaced.

And it is to that side of the coming year that I am offering greeting this day.

To say to you - that when that thing that you love so much breaks – remember that all things can be mended.

It might not look the way that you imagined, it might not even be remotely the same as what you have lost.

It will certainly take time to repair.

And I can guarantee there will be tears.

But it will still have the potential to be made whole again, in some new and miraculous way– and to add beauty where only shattered pieces were scattered before.

And that is a resolution and intention worth holding onto.