Scars

I've always been able to heal relatively quickly. For some reason, bruises hang around much longer than cuts and scrapes, but some cuts leave scars long after the bruises have disappeared.

I'm very fortunate that I don't have any large or disfiguring scars. I do, however have several little ones, each reminding me of another one of life's lessons learned. For example, I have one underneath my eye that I got when I rescued my puppy from the top of the playhouse <--That taught me not to put dogs on roofs. I have another on my knee from my first (and only) skiing experience <--That taught me not to hurl myself down an icy slope without the ability to stop gracefully.

Like many people, not all of my scars are physical. I have some pretty good-sized emotional scars as well. Obviously, I try to let my wounds heal. I try not to go around ripping them back open at the smallest hint of similar situations. It hurts me to watch other people do that. Every day, I see the emotional triage of life, bleeding hearts and wounded souls everywhere. Recently, however, it's become obvious to me that something that I thought was forgotten was still hanging around, causing internal bleeding.

I've made a connection between my past and my present and noticed that my past is still weighing heavily on my interpretation of everything I encounter. I still see through the eyes of the person that I used to be, even though I'm a completely different woman today. A very trusted friend has helped me see that it's time to allow that wound to close and carry on. I'm going to try to eradicate the symptoms, even though I know that the cause remains untreated. I'll work on controlling the effects until I figure out the cure. Eventually, I know that I will learn from this as well.

Yes, some of these scars continue to hurt once closed, but that's how they caution us to remember what they have taught us.