Owies

I'm a fairly careful person.  I don't rush headlong into danger.  I don't have road rage.  I don't yell obscenities inciting those who do.  I use the basic precautions.  But, sometimes, I still get owies.  An accident.  Like the burn I got when getting the cookies out of the oven while talking on my cell to my college so on.  I used an inadequate pot holder.  I felt it burn my finger and I jostled it to move it a bit, but instead, I tipped it too much and it tipped right onto the top of my pointer finger.  At first, it hurt.  Then, amazingly, it didn't.  It went so deep that I guess it got the nerves.  It was an ashy white color about and inch and a half long.  Kind of fascinating.  In the next days, the burn turned into a deep cut looking line.  Meat red.  Raw.  Still didn't really hurt.  The skin had all sloughed off.  The muscle underneath was visible.  Still....kinda fascinating.  Then, it scabbed over and began to heal.  The burn itself didn't hurt, but the finger did.  And the perimeter of the burn.  Ouch.  Funny how the healing process is when it started to hurt.  I bought Lanacane Antibiotic Spray.  Relief.  Numbing.  And, it kept healing.  The scab actually turned into  leather like skin and peeled off....on half of the burn.  The other half was still scabbed.  The scab was a smooth feeling bumpy line.  I liked rubbing my thumb along it.  Experiencing it.  In all of my life, I had never had such a deep burn.  A pink oval surrounded what was left of the scab.  Like pulled skin trying to stretch across and fill the void that had burned away.  Still healing.  But, showing that it's going to leave a scar.  A place that reminds me of what happened.  Even when it is finally healed and doesn't hurt anymore.  And when it's all healed, I can choose to continue to worry about it, think about it, put medicine on it.....or, I can recognize that it is healed.  It is ok.  I can move on.  I can live normally.  Ever so often stopping and noticing it and remembering how long it took to heal.  Being thankful that it didn't get infected.  That the finger was saved.  That I am whole.  Though scarred.
It's like that with emotional owies too.  Sometimes they strike so deeply that we can't even feel it until we begin to heal.  And when we do, the pain hurts all over...not just in the area that we are injured.  I am finding that in my journey.  Finding that it took me a long time to recognize that I had a deep enough "burn" that it needed attention.  That I couldn't just ignore it and live around it.  I had to find a way to truly heal.  To get better.  To stay whole.  Because gangrene could threaten.  I could lose parts of myself to infection.  I chose to begin getting better.  And that decision caused pain.  Discomfort.  But, I keep on healing.  And the painful places get smaller.  The scar is beginning to form.  And, one day, it will just be things that I look back on as a memory.  They won't hold power over me anymore.  Unless I choose to let them.  Focus on the bad.  Grow bitter. I don't choose that.  I choose true healing.  I don't have to stay mad.  I don't have to stay hurt.  And yet those hurts are still valid.  They happened.  They left a scar.  And now it's on to new living.
I still use my oven.  Still bake cookies.  I didn't give up what I enjoy because I got burned.  I am careful.  But, honestly, I was careful before.  It didn't keep me from getting hurt.  So, in my emotional life, I'm not going to quit being me.  Quit having relationships.  I'm not going to spend my life worrying about the  next burn.  Instead, I'm going to enjoy all of the times that I've had and will have cookies WITHOUT being burned.
grace to you.