Rip the Bandaid.

Photo by Judit Peter

I was seeing a movie and the girl wouldn’t just shut up. Not only was she too much of a talker, she also had the knack for going in the opposite direction. For example, when she’s told to do something, she does another.

Then we have the big teddy bear of a man who was her father who just always seemed to indulge her. He indulged her so much that when he finally died, another took his place and that person tried to go easy in letting her in on the secret that the world did not revolve around her. At that very instant, I thought, “well just yell it in her face, that should do for a wake up call”.

Just rip it! I feel that sometimes we give people more reason to do harm by being unnecessarily kind. I used to pride myself in the fact that I could bear a grudge till one of us passed. I also liked to think that I could be heartless when need be. I always thought that I wielded such a power until God humbled me.

I do wield such a power but I am way too filled with goodness to want to use it. How many times have I been disrespected, told to fuck off and just taken advantage of, yet, after I grieve for a few days, weeks, months, and the person utters as much as a sorry, I forget why I was ever even angry. Vows I made become ludicrous to my own heart, and I find myself inching towards their presence. Did I rip off the bandaid?

Maybe ripping it off does more good than harm? Lets the person heal faster and better not the other way around. Maybe being tough is the best form of kindness. Maybe that’s why our parents are so firm with us, so strict. But what does that have to do with anything I said in the beginning of this post?

See, I’ve had mine ripped a couple of times in the past year and a few more this year. Not just by people I let close , but those I also deemed friends. They hurt me and I dream “revenge”, but here’s the thing, the more I hurt, the lesser I tend to see them as the cause. Finally, should they apologize, I forget it ever happened. My memory is wiped clean but my heart does not forget, it treads lightly (wounded).

My friend tells me that is a beautiful thing I have and I should cherish it. I do remember that this year has a theme of its own for me. A theme I gave it, so it’s a little hard to accept things I don’t understand immediately. What I do understand now more than ever is that time does heal. The ache gets duller with each passing moment, and before we know it, that wound is dried up and all that’s left is the scar to remind us of what once was.

I feel like I’m rambling, but that’s exactly how my thoughts woke my dead tired body from sleep at 00:00 with words entangled and twisted intricately in my head, so much so that extracting them took more time and effort than I had originally intended.

So I say, let it ache. Let it burn. Rip the bandaid, and after all that, let time heal you. Human is who we are after all, what’s a little pain to the fallen who have risen time and time again?