A Beautiful Monster

On redemption, mending, and the sacred thread that binds us.

To be beautiful is to be human, bound together by an intangible thread.

I watched Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein over the weekend, on the wake of a very vivid and powerful dream. The movie and the dream left me emotional and haunted. Not in a dark way, but in a new, realized way. Like I see things differently now. Like I understand something I didn’t before.

First of all, I thought the movie was so excellent. It felt like I was watching a romantic drama written just for me, meant to be seen at that exact moment in my life. I saw myself in Frankenstein. My heart ached for him.

Aren’t we all stitched-up broken pieces of ourselves, hoping to be seen and loved for our wholeness despite the gross scars? Aren’t we all secretly chasing a reflection — to be seen and loved despite our imperfections and wounds?

Isn’t it a common thread — this wanting to mend the hidden broken parts of ourselves with love? Oooof. That’s the guts right there.

I believe that what makes the monster a monster is actually his superpower, if one can find the reconciliation. After all, he was made from the better parts of the departed. He became the sum of his parts. A redemption.

Franky begs his creator to make him a partner to love, to have compassion. For it was his father who made him so different, so gross. He pleads for someone like himself to quench his loneliness and abandonment. Holy smokes, that hit me hard.

I too wish to quench my loneliness. I have also felt alone and abandoned. I, like Frankenstein, crave to be seen and loved. Sometimes I long for a witness — to have these years witnessed. A witness in my mending. A little physical help with the mending of the fiber of my being.

I’ll tell you this, I now know the beauty is in the thread that mends our broken pieces together. My beautiful threads. Threads sometimes made from fine fiber, sometimes ripped off the edges of old garments. Held together just the same.

I weep as I write this because it’s so beautiful to be loved like that. To love like that. It is beautiful.

⸻

Let’s go back to my dream.

On the full moon, I woke in tears — ugly crying into my pot of coffee. Not from sadness, but because of something more than that.

My first love, Brian, who has been gone for many years, came to me in my dream.

It was now, present time, and we were together. I felt him. I remember feeling his embrace and his kiss. It was real. I felt safe and in love.

I remember saying, “Brian, you haven’t aged in all these years.” He looked the same, despite the years he’s been gone. He looked at me with pity because, like a fool, I didn’t recognize he was still dead.

I woke with that realization. I woke with the overwhelming feeling that I got to have a date with a man I loved so dearly. My loneliness quenched, even if it was just a dream.

I got to experience that kind of love again — a love I long for so deeply, like Frankenstein. To not feel so different, or monstrous, or alone. To be seen and held so beautifully.

I cried in my coffee because I experienced and I realized. I learned that it’s true — I can be loved like that again, even in my dreams.

⸻

Maybe I will be loved like that in this dimension again soon.

Maybe I will be seen as the whole and mended beauty that I am.

I’ll tell you this — I love my threads. My beautiful mending materials that hold me together. That have held me together. The multi-faceted puzzle pieces that make up my life.

What a gift, and what a mission, it is to be a monster.

A beautiful monster.

I’m not asking for your pity. Sometimes my feelings of abandonment come from the courage it took to leave people and situations that were not for me — for the greater service of my good.

I’m the daddy.