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 ...

Pain in the ... ribs

So I have this pain.

In my ribs.

And as far as I know, it just appeared last night, feeling like someone had decked me real hard in the middle section of my ribs. I hadn't done anything to warrant such a pain, and I spent the majority of the night clutching a heating pad to my side like a talisman and reading the only medical source I own -- a 1970s-era American Heritage Dictionary. I now know where my liver is located and what a Douay Bible is ... and that's about it.

Still hurts, though. A bit less, but it still hurts. I'd like to think that coffee helps. I like to imagine that coffee helps everything.

Enter WebMD.

After clicking "yes," "no," "maybe," "I don't know," "before this," "after that," twirling three times and shouting "Hail Mary!" ... WebMD told me that I could have any one of about 20 problems, ranging from gas pains to colon cancer to heart attack (female). I really appreciated the distinction of the (female) heart attack.

Yippee.

Seriously.

Weenie

You know how you watch movies or shows or read stories about people who just toughed something out and showed everyone around them that they could do it? In this instance, I'm thinking "GI Jane." I remember watching that and thinking, "yeah -- chicks are tough! Take that, stupid boys!"

And, by virtue of being a "chick" myself, I figured I must be just as strong. I think of myself as tough. I don't wince when the hair stylist combs through my tangled hair (I have a tough head). I don't cry when I get a steam burn while cooking (becuase I'm tough). And I wore gas-permeable (hard) contact lenses for three years in junior high school and learned to not freak out when they moved off the center of my eye ... because I'm tough. Duh.

But last night, I discovered that I'm not very tough.

In fact ... I'm a weenie.

I had just finished watching SNL, and since I had never turned off the oven from baking eggplant earlier in the night, I figured I'd also tackle my butternut squash and have one less thing to cook on Sunday.

So, at midnight, I pulled out the cutting board, the knife and the squash. And I began to cut the squash in what was intended to be halves. By the end of the night, I didn't care much what the squash looked like.

A crash, and a sense of indescribable agony ... and I was certain that I had somehow dropped the knife that was still buried in the butternut squash, because my big toe felt like it had been magled and needed to be amputated, if it hadn't already been so.

Swearing a combination of words that I didn't know could go together, I looked at my foot ... and at the cutting board that had slid off the counter and had angled itself to land on its edge ... on my big toe.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't stand. I hopped into the living room, flapping my arms (because that helps a lot) and then just crumpled to the floor, not breathing but still somehow whisper-screaming my pain, wanting to pound my floor with my hands and yet not wanting to frighten my new downstairs neighbors. So I just lay there on the floor, wanting desperately to cry, but unable to summon any tears (those came a few minutes later -- and in very great quantities), gasping in whatever air I could, and looking at my rapidly blackening toenail.

It's been a long time since I've hurt myself bad enough to cry, but once I was able to cry last night, I was sobbing. This was one mofo of an owie.

The kicker: My freezer won't freeze ice. It takes days and days, and by the time ice has actually frozen in the little trays, the water has also absorbed every funky odor my fridge can emanate. So I gave up keeping unusable ice in the freezer.

So I had no ice.

I just had my bathtub and the cold water tap.

And I wanted my mom(my).

Besides having the very appreciated sympathy that a mom(my) is supposed to have, I knew she was the only person in my world who could understand and appreciate what I was feeling, having shattered her big toe three years ago when a frozen, 20-pound turkey fell on it. So I sat on the edge of the tub, my foot submerged in the coldest water my faucet could produce, sobbing my agony into my cell phone while my mom listened and gave sympathy and encouragement. It wasn't as good as being able to get a hug, but it counted.

The throbbing pain didn't cease 'til around 6 this morning -- pain that felt like someone was repeatedly stabbing my toe; pain that kept me mercilessly awake, crying and cursing my pillows for not being fluffy enough to keep my foot propped up enough to keep the pain away enough so I could sleep ... needless to say, I didn't make church this morning.

All of that to confess to you, my readers, that I am not GI Jane tough.

I'm a weenie.

A weenie with a big, black toe.