Life is like a Band-Aid

Life really is like a Band-Aid.  How?  Look at what Band-Aids are:

They are cover-ups to let a fresh wound heal a bit before exposing the fresh skin to the barrage of the world.  Some have pictures of Winny the Pooh, others have Robots.  There are large square ones, and thin banded ones; some that come with a plain, cottony pad and others with a hypoallergenic, proactive, aerated, pressure sensitive compress.  Band-Aids have character, they have function, and they are a basic tool that people use everyday.

Look at life.  Life can hurt, and when life hurts we tend, at least initially, to cover it up.  Our face doesn’t show it, we try not to let our bodies show it, some people eat, some run, others cry, and there are those that drink or meditate or ignore.  None the less, the wound is there, it’s fresh, gaping, and real.  We put on our emotional Band-Aids and wait for time to do a little mending.  Sometimes though we still feel it.  We feel it when the wound under our Band-Aid rubs against the door frame on the way into our house, or when you see a picture of the one you lost, or the lover no more.

Then you’re reminded of how it all happened.  It flashes through your mind like a wave, a torrent over a dam in a storm.  The experience is real again.  You can feel yourself falling off of the bike and scraping your elbow, you can hear those scathing words again in your ears, in your mind, in your heart.  The ache is fresh again, but when you look at the wound, maybe it’s a little pink around the edges from mending, from a well functioning body, maybe it’s a little further away in your mind.  Maybe you learned something about doing it again the next time.

Then there’s taking the Band-Aid off.  You know it’s going to sting.  You know looking at the scab or scar underneath will be, well… interesting.  But getting to it, taking a look is going to cost you something.  You might even need to cover it up again with another, fresh Band-Aid, because you weren’t ready.  The wound needed more time.  If not, you’ll have a reminder of how you got the wound – a little something left over to tell you what happened.  Even though, over more time, that may fade, and you may forget what happened.  If you weren’t ready though, you’ll put on a Band-Aid of a different character; maybe this time the Robots or the meditation. You’re tired of Whinny the Pooh after-all, and no more booze.  And you’ll wait a little longer to take a look.

I have a nice Marmot wind breaker.  It has a hole in the right elbow where I fell off of my bike hopping up onto a curb for the first time.  Every time I see a curb I remember that moment.  My elbow is better now, I can’t even see the scar, and I still try to hop that curb.  I have some other hurts too.  Those are inside.  Those are fresh, and deep.  They will take more time.  I keep looking at them every once in a while though, to see where they are in the process.  Sometimes the aches come up without me asking them to.  A little rub against some object of memory to remind me.

You see.  Life is like a Band-Aid.  Thank goodness.  There’s something to fend the world off for a little while.  How else could we heal?  How else could we learn?  Too bad it has to hurt sometimes though.