Hurt

"No one ever wants the person who hurt them to ever see how badly they really hurt."


I started writing this morning when I ran across this quote.  In my experience, it holds true.  But maybe that's just me.  I saw it and realized that if I had any chance of writing a decent post today, it would be about that statement.  I've inflicted a lot of pain and I've hurt quite a bit myself.  That's the only way I came to understand what this was saying.  I don't think it's something you can understand particularly well unless you've been there.  Especially if you've been on both sides of the hurt, then it really starts to make sense.

The thing is, I initially wanted to write this as a more artistic post.  Use it to tell a story.  Relate a relevant event, a time of hurt, something to fit the quote.  So I sat here, looking around me and remembering all of those moments of sitting here, or there, or somewhere else, staring at my screen, crying.  I remembered the times of stepping around the corner and pressing against the wall, tears running down my face, the bitter words that led there, the pain that kept me rooted in place.  That's how I realized that I couldn't write a post like that.

If I tried, I could get the words out.  But I realized a long time ago that saying the words and expressing an idea well are far from one and the same.  So now I'm sitting here singing songs that make you slit your wrists and trying to figure out how to write this so as to still do the subject justice without bringing back the things that really hurt because I know the wounds are still there.  They may have scarred over and even been covered by fresh tissue.  I know though, that scar tissue is weaker than the skin it replaced.  And I know that opening those wounds afresh would be only too easy.  Which is why I'm not going to.  Or at least I'm going to try not to.

I've hurt a number of people over the course of my life.  Some on purpose, but most not.  I've also let any number of people hurt me.  Some of whom were worth it, others who weren't.  That's how it goes.  We live and we learn.  As it turns out, part of that is being hurt by those we love.  The bitter stinging takes a while to subside and sometimes it doesn't really go away but only gets buried until the next subtle wound is inflicted, when it comes back stronger than ever and hurts even more.  The thing that I've found is that if we think it's worth it, we make it through anyway.

Despite all of this hurt, I can still sit here and smile.  It works out in the end.  I promise.  Do the best you can with it.  That's all anybody can ask.  Oh, and props to anyone who caught the reference up there...apologies to those who didn't.