"All my nerves are naked wires
Tender to the touch
Sometimes super sensitive
But who can care too much?
I get this feeling...
Scars of pleasure
Scars of pain
Atmospheric changes
Make them sensitive again"
I'm an idiot. Wallowing in my own ignorance and my own self described good life I have come to believe and even live by certain ideals that may very well be insensitive and even hurtful to people I care about. I have written extensively here about living without regret..it's almost a mantra with me really. And while I still believe that and will continue to live that way I must sound so bone headed insensitive to some people when I preach my sunny ways. On a long ride along the shores of eastern Nova Scotia with the fall colours muted but still a sight to behold, inlets and coves and heads slipping by only to reveal another magnificent vista just around the next bend, I had my ignorance shown to me in full glory yesterday.
In a case of "walk a mile in my shoes" I didn't realize that maybe, just maybe, my proclamations of living life abundantly and without regret might be insensitive to someone that has suffered loss greater than I can possibly imagine. That maybe I should calm my self down and think about the person I may be saying this to. Stands to reason that not everyone sees life as I might and it stands to reason that I couldn't possibly know what another person is fully going through...I am truly sorry for this.
I thought a lot about "scars" last night and today. The seed planted, without fanfare, when I noticed a few marks on my dining room table that weren't there before. My table was scarred. I looked to my arm with my one good eye where I sport an ugly reminder of surgery years ago. I have numerous scars on my body that have stories attached to them. I'm waiting to go in for eye surgery again to fix some scar tissue. But they all pale in comparison to the scars on my heart. Those aching and sweet mementos from my past that can bring great joy and great pain in a micro second, triggered by just about anything. A scent, a word, a colour. Those are the scars that I am talking about...the ones I may know and the ones I couldn't possibly know in the people around me that cause feelings of deep regret, of deep pain. Not the ones that you can take a lesson away from, a learning opportunity...that's a different beast all together.
"Each emotional injury
Leaves behind its mark
Sometimes they come tumbling out
Like shadows in the dark
I get this feeling...
When I think about all I have seen
And all I'll never see
When I think about the people
Who have opened up to me
I get this feeling..."
I rationalized that I really haven't had traumatic things happen to me. The worse thing that I have had near me was the death of my best friends son. A terrible time and truly all I can say is that I can't even imagine - but this happened to him, my pain was secondary if that makes any sense. Even my diagnosis of a rare and often fatal fuck off cancer thing didn't change my thoughts on the subject. I was laughing and making jokes about it by the time the elevator got down to the main floor of the building I was in. So maybe this outlook has spared me in some way...I really don't know.
Everyone is going to have their own way of dealing with hard and painful times, their scars will be theirs to own, to live with. And maybe they are too much, too overwhelming, too raw to ever not think of them and be in pain because of them. And than I come along smiling with my no regrets...ugh
While I will continue to live as abundantly as I can, leaving regret aside as much as I can, I hope I can be a little more aware of my surroundings...not so casual in my ignorance.
"I've stood upon my mountaintop
And shouted at the sky
Walked above the pavement
With my sense amplified
I get this feeling..."
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