I fell, and I didn’t think I’d be able to get back up.
I’m not even sure I wanted to. But I did. Bruised. Broken. Not done.
Outside, I was rough—scarred, dented, not the kind of thing anyone wanted to look at, much less carry home. I wasn’t shiny or firm. I wasn’t fresh. I was a rotten apple.
And no one wants a rotten apple. When people see one, they see bruised, broken flesh. Unappetizing. Unappealing. Unwanted. It’s tossed aside, and never used in pies or school lunches. Never invited to belong. Just something soft and misshapen, left to wither alone.
For a long time, I believed that’s all I was. Unseen.
The fall was real. It was physical. It was emotional. But it was also spiritual: a fall from grace. Hard to accept. Hard to admit. For a time, I lost respect for who I was.
But slowly—slowly—I began to realize: there were pieces of me still worth saving. Pieces that hadn’t gone bad. Seeds, even.
Because it’s what’s inside that truly matters. Maybe it’s all that matters—because it is all there is.
You can get past the bruising. You can move beyond the scarring and all the nonsense. Something remarkable might still lie within. It just takes time. And maybe someone willing to look past the skin.
That apple—me—might never end up on someone’s table, bright and welcomed. But maybe it has seeds. And seeds don’t just survive. They grow.
Matthew Ryan
Gainesville, Florida