Living with it
People look at you differently once they know you’ve hurt yourself badly enough that some part of it can never be undone. Even when everything has healed and you’re doing better, there’s sometimes this hesitation that wasn’t there before, like they’re still waiting to see whether something is wrong, I understand where it comes from, especially when there are consequences that aren’t going to disappear with time, but it’s difficult knowing that something from one terrible period can change the way people see you long after that period has ended.
there’s also a strange difference between being physically healed and actually being past something, eventually the appointments become less frequent, everything stops being new, and you learn how to live around whatever cannot be repaired. Other people don’t necessarily move on at the same speed, sometimes they become more careful with you, sometimes they ask questions without really asking them and sometimes you can simply tell by the way they look at you that they remember. I think part of what makes it difficult is that everybody has a past but most people don’t necessarily have to wear evidence of theirs every day. There are things other people regret that eventually become stories they can choose whether or not to tell.
The people here have helped me a lot with getting used to that. Nobody there can change what happened obviously, but they’ve been good about reminding me that being unable to undo something doesn’t mean you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life trapped inside the moment you did it. Everyone arrives carrying something with them, even when you can’t see it from the outside. I think being around people who already know this has made ordinary life easier too, because there’s nothing new to explain and i don’t have to wonder what somebody is thinking every time they look at me.
being told that i should stop looking at what remains as only evidence of the worst period of my life and start looking at it as evidence that there was an after. I think about that often now. There was a before, there was what happened, and then God still permitted another morning to come, and another one after that.
Scripture is full of people whose lives were not finished after their worst moments. Peter denied Christ three times and was still told, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17). thomas doubted, and Christ still invited him to come near and see his wounds (John 20:27). Even after the resurrection, Christ’s wounds remained. They were no longer wounds of ongoing suffering, but they were not erased either.
I think there is something important in that distinction. I don’t have to convince myself that what happened was good in order to believe that God can still bring good out of what came afterward. What remains can be a reminder of where i have already been and where i never want to return. It can also be a reminder that i was given time after it. A second chance doesn’t erase the first life. It gives you responsibility for what you do with the life that follows.
Deo gratias.