needed band aids….not salt…..

It is hard for the deepest wounds to heal if they are not properly cleaned and dressed; left unattended, they can eventually poison the entire body. Immediate care, not days after or years after….as soon as possible….is the best solution to insure healing.

I can remember as a child that I constantly pulled at the scab unless it was covered with a band aid and out of sight. It even led to fairly serious infections because I just wouldn’t let it be, I just had to keep picking at it. My body is covered with small scars where wounds were left to heal without any attention at all.

There is a place on my finger where I slammed it with a tobacco knife cutting dark tobacco in my late teens. It probably needed stitches, maybe several…but I just wrapped it in paper towels and tape (yes, duct tape) and kept on going. Later we drank some beer, got high and laughed bout how bad the cut had been.

Today, that place on my finger has no feeling. The knot and scar reminds me that it happened, that I had been cut deep…to the bone….but fortunately, there is no feeling…just a scar.

the last few months of my life, the most wonderful I have ever known have revealed to me scars from wounds that were much deeper than I ever realized. I knew I had taken blows, been cut….even had a few scabs picked off again and again….but I did not have the capacity to realize their true severity. I had no idea.

The things I allowed myself to be subjected to, thinking I was in a place I believed existed…knowing now that it does, because I am there!…..allowed to happen time and time again, cutting deeper and deeper….myself smiling the whole time “that doesn’t hurt, that doesn’t hurt!”…never once stopping to properly dress the wounds, never taking the time for them to heal…allowing the scabs to be pulled again and again….have left me with deeper scars than that tobacco knife (at least it is numb), larger scars than falling on the metal pipes and seeing my kneecap in all its glory, uglier than my extended butt crack from the surgeries to repair even deeper wounds. They have left scars that threatened to fester from inside, that cause me pain…that cause me to worry incessantly that the events that caused the wounds will happen again….and again….and damn it….again….they hurt in spite of attempts to ignore them.

The last two days. I have cut them open again. Performed some surgery on myself to relieve the pressure, to allow them to be examined, to see them for what they were at the time they occurred.

They had festered, they smelled…they still do a bit….and it got on everyone around me. It hurt to do it, it hurt me to see the effect that their being revealed had on my wife, my best friend…my everything. These were my deepest wounds, my worst scars…my most painful….and she smiled. She held me, she even tried to understand how severe they were….and I am fairly certain that she did…God, I am so thankful that you allowed me this!

I am not sure they are properly dressed and perfectly clean yet. But I have at least acknowledged they need attention. I have begun the process of caring for them a new…and I have help; an amazing woman who refuses to let me pick at the scab…who my heart tells me will protect them until they heal….who will fight anyone who thinks it might be ok to re-open them. I am finally (pretty sure) gonna be ok with the things that have caused me the most pain…and maybe one day…they will all be less noticeable than the spot where they pricked my finger and drew blood this week.

…………………….later…………