Scar tissue

Some things just hurt worse than others. Longer than others.

I'm not convinced that Cheryl Crow is right, that the first cut is the deepest, but some cuts are definitely deeper than others. And they leave lingering, reminding scars.

And in matters of the heart, we either trudge on, looking for someone/thing else which we can trust and love more deeply (and which can potentially hurt us more deeply), or we lock our hearts up, give Cupid an emphatically gesticulated middle finger, drink lots of alcohol and pickle not only our physical insides, but the emotional ones, too. Well-preserved, but not really good for anything but observation. Not fit for interaction. Smelly and cynical.

But I wonder - for those of us who tend our wounds, get some emotional healing and support from friends and family and attempt to move on - whether we intentionally inflict shallower, less-meaningful injuries to our hearts, attempting to either a) divert ourselves from the deeper, lingering pain that can still cripple us in unguarded moments, or b) to add enough pain to our lives so we can't really discern which wound is hurting the worst. Do we even recognize that we're doing it? Or is it done in the hope that the next one will be the one without realizing that there's a reason that the word "rebound" is used in relational terms ... and we're living it out?

And then I wonder - is this healthy? It's done frequently enough. An internal, emotional form of cutting, I guess. But does "normal" make it healthy? Is it fair? To anyone involved? Do we have the right to engage another person's heart, inflict wounds bearing our signature on someone else in a selfish attempt to dull or divert our own pain? Aren't we perpetuating the very pain we're trying so hard to escape?

It's just something that's been on my mind lately. Scars are interesting to examine and reflect on ... and, when the pain is sufficiently dulled (healthily or otherwise), they're one more story that makes us who we are ...