“Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.” ― Greta Garbo

We all have them, our bottles. These vessels that we store and stow away from ourselves serve a purpose. But this purpose is usually a dark one, or one we wish to throw away but simply cannot.

In this sphere of emotion we take our bottles, our jars and our boxes and seal them. We unknowingly place our belongings, our torments, our rage, wrath, heartache and worry and we sigh a silent goodbye, tucking them neatly away. But they never are away.

Yet, they remain, sealed.

Every human being has a bottle. He has a bottle in which he places his most deepest and hurtful pain. This bottle is not for drinking, but for entombing. It only exists as a prison for the lost, for the starved wants or the less than bearable thoughts that no longer can be endured.

This is a bottle of thick glass; a cup brimmed of suffering.

If you can trace your thoughts back, back to a time when you could not stand such pain, you’d see a bottle in your hand. And into that bottle, eventually, this pain was placed.

Hermetically sealed, welded shut, starved of air.

But what of these bottles?

The other night I had what I’d choose to refer to as an abrupt moment of clarity. A moment in which I knew, in a lucid, wakeful state of pure heart and mind that I was lost among a discord of my own actions.

My bottle was full, and it nearly shattered. And I’d nearly lost my temper. Inadvertently, I saw what I’d been placing in my bottle. I saw my problem and I heard my innermost voice speak in such a resounding tone that I paused and looked down at what I’d become.

Such moments, I believe, are true gifts..

And I also believe this voice is here for a purpose, a purpose to remind us of our bottles, no matter how many of them there might be, or how full they’ve become.

Perhaps, if we’d open our bottles and empty them out onto the floor and with new eyes look upon what we’ve stowed away or what we’ve wept over and what we’ve incarcerated into a shackled oblivion, then we may gain a much needed clarity into our lives.

We can only carry so much..

So maybe we should carry less.

Our bottles hold our secrets, and sometimes even we forget where we’ve placed them, or why we’ve done so and to what means we’re willing to keep them from surfacing.

But it only takes one glance to open the seal.

So perhaps our bottles are meant to be broken, acknowledged, respected, tipped to our mouths and drank from.

Only then will we truly accept our own reflection.

And only then may we ever truly see our own eyes.