I was sorting and matching socks for the better part of the morning. It’s an arduous task and requires an immense amount of concentration. Not really. I honestly spent half the time on the phone and the other half day dreaming. Well, right in the center of a spider web of thoughts… it hit me. I had the worst day of my life while sitting on the side of my bed folding clothes. Then in the center of that spider web of thoughts was the realization that the anniversary of that day had just passed… I didn’t even notice it. Wasn’t a blip on the screen and I probably wouldn’t have remembered the grim anniversary had I not been folding clothes.
During the middle of this situation, I was beyond inconsolable. It was in all my thoughts, day and night. The ache in my bones. The hurt was coming out of my pores. For about 4 years, every year that passed by I observed the day my world changed with a grim remembrance and reignited the charred remains of everything that had been burned to the ground. It was almost as though I enjoyed being sad.
This year is the 7th anniversary of “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, but as I previously stated….I didn’t even remember it until today, almost a full month after the day. I don’t think about it much during the rest of the year now either. I don’t feel the need to vomit when I hear a certain name, I don’t feel anger or bitterness. I don’t feel anything negative. It’s not just the Welbutrin talking either. I really feel as though I have moved on.
The only reasonable explanation for this is that I feel time presented me with two options. Stay in the past. Let this memory envelope you. Let it suffocate you. Let it kill you. OR…simply, Let it go. I chose the latter. Because all of my pity pool parties, all my moaning and wailing and wallowing in despair wouldn’t change the fact that ….This bad thing still happened. So I let it go.
Rose Kennedy once said “It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” But I would have to strongly disagree with her. Time is a healer, especially when you stop continually ripping off the band-aid on your broken heart and let the wound mend. I would have never thought it 7 years ago. Yes, there will be scar tissue and yes, there will be a bad memory of a terrible time, but if you allow time to do its work, you can emerge on the other side stronger and able to fold laundry without bursting out into tears.
Time heals all wounds. Great friends help when you are hurting. You just can’t be afraid to reach out because sometimes your friends don’t know or realize that you are hurting. They might not even realize how bad things are going in you put on a fake smile and act like nothing is bothering you.
Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my own pity blanket that I forget that friends are there for that reason (as well as other reasons) I tell you, the 30′s have been more life education that I got in the first 29 years of my life.