By: Jennifer Richardson Holt
I ended this past weekend with horribly swollen eyes.
Now perhaps you’re thinking that such a development was the result of some sort of allergy or the like. I wish you were correct, well not that I was in fact having an allergic reaction but that the reason that my eyelids looked like smooth fat tree frogs was something as innocent as a histamine response.
I hadn’t remotely planned on conducting an emotional archaeological dig, but all it took was a sentence or two before I was knee-deep in years of hurt, chiseling away. I don’t even think they were meant to be hurtful words. I can’t exactly tell you what purpose they were supposed to serve but I feel quite certain stirring the emotive equivalent to Vesuvius on Pompeii wasn’t it.
It is such an odd thing how seemingly tiny things can have such an immense impact. If I had to guess you may be able to relate to this. I suspect you are familiar with that off-hand comment that requires you to force cordiality while your jaw is clenched tighter than Dick’s hatband.
I think I did fairly well in my response to this person. I acknowledged the comment with what I can only imagine was an incredibly pained looking smile and then there was a strained pause. I don’t think the pause was because this person realized that they had just beaten me with the emotional equivalent of a barbed-wire wrapped bat. I think it was simply that I couldn’t say more because I was reeling from the blow and they didn’t say more because well, I don’t know why they didn’t say more but I had best be thankful they didn’t.
The rest of the day I was quiet and, if I’m honest, sullen. My husband noticed my face immediately, mere moments after the exchange and inquired. I told him. He comforted me as best he could.
I assumed given some time the sting would fade and my mood would, while perhaps not return to its pre-incident state, at least brighten a bit.
I was significantly mistaken.
I knew the weight of it was staying heavy, but I noticed it steadily building. I cannot tell you what the straw was that broke the camel’s back. I don’t think it was mulling the comment over in my mind possibly turning it into something completely other than what it was. I suppose it could have been the fact that this was a familiar wound that apparently had its nerve endings tangled into every hurt like it from the past. But what I do know is that, while putting away laundry in my closet I collapsed into a sobbing heap.
The dog checked on me first. That I was on the floor and that my wet face looked like it needed licking was enough to pique her interest. I was secluded enough that I decided to just let whatever this visceral response was spill out of me. It would have been more cathartic if it hadn’t come in overwhelming waves like being knocked down time and time again choking at the seashore. There was a time I was concerned the waves wouldn’t subside, but they did. Eventually.
There was also the moment that my husband walked in to me on the closet floor looking what must have been far worse for wear. Once I was capable of coherent speech he and I discussed things at length. After some lengthy conversations his concerned brow became less furrowed in my general direction.
Even after comfort and conversation I cannot say that the pain was lessened. It simply changed. My reaction to it also changed.
I forced myself once my feelings had evolved to a tolerable ache to consider the test. My mother always says that if you don’t pass a test you have to take it again. And while I am not sure what “passing” this test would have actually looked like, I can assume at the very least, this was allowed for some reason, so I was supposed to learn from it.
I had to sit with it for quite some time, and it did not make good company. Digging through the rubble wasn’t pleasant, and I never unearthed some profound hidden lesson waiting beneath the wreckage. What I found instead was much simpler.
Sometimes pain comes because we have earned it.
Sometimes it comes despite us.
And sometimes it finds an old wound so precisely that it hurts far more than anyone standing nearby could possibly understand.
I cannot always choose whether those arrows are fired, nor whether they strike their mark. I can only choose what sort of archer I will be.
Knowing how deeply careless words can wound has made me want, more than ever, to wield mine carefully. If this hurt leaves anything worthwhile behind, I hope it is that. I would rather spend my days binding wounds than causing them, building people up instead of tearing them down.
For now, I think that is enough.
Prose and Possibilities 