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 ...

Chubby

I have found it.

I have found the one instance in life when a doctor will pat you on the back, say "congratulations" and smile at you for being chubby -- it's when your corneas are chubby and you've just asked said doctor about eye surgery.

The reason for the hip-hip-hooray over the chubbiness makes me nervous: The reason your corneas have to be thick isbecause they shave your cornea. Yup. Shave. Brings to mind other things, eh? At least the initial part (from what I read before the dilating drops kicked in and I couldn't focus on anything) is now done with a laser, instead of a HANDHELD steel knife.

It's okay. I almost screamed in the waiting room when I read that last part, too.

My younger brother has had this done and sent the pre-surgery informational DVD to my mother, who shrieked when she saw it. "It's awful," she said. I have a DVD of my own to watch, and I'm trying to find a brave moment to do so. I just got the good, chubby news this morning, so I think I've got plenty of time.

Matt says that when they do the shaving, you're completely blind in that eye for ten seconds or so. "It was the scariest ten seconds of my life, Sarah." He couldn't see, and he was pretty sure, for at lest seven seconds, that it was going to be permanent. I don't know if I can handle seven seconds of thinking I've been permanently blinded. I can't handle thinking I've nicked myself shaving my legs ... I'm a weenie.

I have to have my corneas measured at least two more times before he'll let me have the surgery, which has to be done in Denver. Keep your fingers crossed that my eyes don't go on a diet with the rest of me.

I wonder if I can blame any of my extra weight on my chunky eyes. I blame my long hair for at least a couple pounds, the weight of the fabric I'm wearing when I weight (at least another pound, of course) ... and I wonder, if I ever go back to Weight Watchers in the near future, whether I could look the meetings leader in the eye and say, "I carry a lot of weight in my eyes -- no, really -- my eye doctor told me that I have very chubby corneas."

Yeah. I didn't think so, either.