You’re More Than Your Wounds

The Band-Aid might be huge but it doesn’t cover your whole body. There are well parts to you.

If I asked you to look at the well parts of yourself and not at the Band-Aid, could you do it? Or is the Band-Aid all you can see?

I thought of this today as I walked to my car after a meeting. It was, like so many of a person’s thoughts, unrelated to anything that had happened at the meeting. Nothing bad had transpired and I hadn’t been ruminating on anything sad or wrong during the long discussions about policies and allocations. I didn’t have any wounds de jour. I was actually just fine.

But still the thought stuck with me. I thought about friends who can’t live without their Band-Aids, who feel naked without them. And I thought about fellow bloggers who seem forever stuck in their wounds, never allowing them to heal really because they’re always writing about them from new angles, each time bringing up a new well of tears.

Feeling bad is both a reflex and a way of life, I think, because people have more practice feeling bad than feeling good. And feeling bad is a lot more interesting. There’s a lot more to analyze with a bad feeling than a good one, blame to place, nuances to measure.

It’s tricky being happy. Sort of a dead end in terms of introspection. Well, ok, so I’m happy. Now what do I think about?

Sometimes I worry that if I become free of angst, I’ll have nothing to write about. But then there’s always Auld Angst Syne.

I’m sorry. I truly am. I’ll do better.