Wounds and Scars

I've got a pretty nasty-looking scar on one shin. It's not a raised welt that runs for a long distance. If anything, it's more like a sunken crater, about the diameter of a half-dollar coin. It's a relic of my younger years, a good reminder of why it is that I don't really drink anymore, and especially why I don't drink when I'm upset. I'm pretty sure we've all done the thing of banging your shin into a coffee table or something like it when walking around in the dark. As best as I was able to figure out, I must've been moving at well better than walking speed. Things were aggravated when I kept rubbing it, thinking I'd just gotten a bruise or welt. Nope, I'd done worse than that. I'd ripped my shin open down almost to the bone. I can only think that I was so intoxicated I didn't even really feel it at the time. Lord knows I sure felt it the next day, and for quite some time afterward!

It took a long time for that to heal over. In the meantime, there were all kinds of frequent reminders that it was there. For the first while, anything that brushed against it, even with a bandage over it, made me jump and have to bite back words my grandmother'd slap me for knowing. Taking a shower was pretty consistently agonizing. Changing the bandage over it was no fun, as it'd often stick, and even the tape pulling on the skin around it would bring out a flare of pain.

And then there was a day I realized that it had closed over. I'm still not exactly sure when it had happened or how long it had really taken. I'm pretty sure I'd gotten so used to just trudging through the annoyance and discomfort that it took awhile to notice it had changed, that most of it wasn't there anymore. Don't get me wrong, It was still tender. Poking at it was still not fun. Same with bumping my leg into much of anything. However, I didn't have to wear a bandage over it all the time. The raw flesh wasn't sticking to whatever was close to it, whether it was socks or medical supplies or pants or sheets or...anything. The hot water and soap from a shower didn't set it screaming and make me want to cry...again.

I'd gotten better....at least somewhat.

As I said, it was still tender. If I rubbed at it much, the scar tissue would open up, and I'd have to go through the whole mess again. However, it wasn't just about anything that'd set it off screaming or make it bleed again. Still, I was able to let go of a degree of tension I hadn't realized I was carrying before. And, at the same time, it felt more than a little strange for that to be gone.

Healing seems to go that way. The initial hallmarks of it, at least for me, have often been discomfort of some type or other. The comfort and relief and enjoyment seem to come later, sometimes quite later. In the last week or so, I've suddenly realized that something's shifted for me. It's the first time in the last 2+ years I can recall that it's felt like I'm living my life, instead of trying to carry on the shattered, mangled remnants of our life. In some ways it feels a bit better. It's like having the wound finally closed over, having become a scar. And yet, there's still the sense of something missing that had been there for a long, long time. I'd had just shy of 15 years with me darlin' wife, and the last two have, for the most part, still been spent living intricately and intimately tied to her. Intellectually, I've known for a long time she's gone, she's not coming back, and I'm now a single man finding my own way. However, this is the first time it's felt like it. I can't help hoping that it'll both maintain and, eventually, it'll become something that feels good, too. I don't know for sure. I've never had to do anything like this before. Despite all the stuff I've read that suggests that's how it goes, I don't know it yet.

To borrow a line from the brilliant movie “The Book of Eli”, “I walk by faith, not by sight.” There's not much other way to go, and I refuse to stand still.