Covered in Scars

What a shame to go through life without scars. They’re evidence of a life fully lived.

Based on a line from Shrinking, Season 3.

So much of life leaves no visible mark on us.

No scar remains from a day when we laughed until our stomachs hurt. Or from something we longed for and could hardly wait to happen. And there have been plenty of days like that.

When I think about my life, I’m often surprised by what I remember. Some things that were once terribly important to me mean almost nothing now. There were things I wanted so badly I couldn’t imagine ever not wanting them. And then I stopped.

Something means the world to you, and a few years later you have to think for a moment to remember why it mattered so much.

There were also times when I knew something might end badly. Sometimes I could even guess how. But I wanted it anyway.

And I can’t say I’m sorry.

I wasn’t always sensible, and I didn’t even want to be. There were plenty of chances to think things through, weigh things up, wait. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I didn’t feel like waiting.

These days, I’m glad I didn’t always insist on things making sense before they happened.

I couldn’t count all my scars. Some faded long ago, while others have stayed much longer than I expected. But if I tried to tell the story of my life through them alone, I’d leave out almost everything I love most about it.

So much has happened between them.

And it’s still happening.

I can still be surprised, find myself wanting something completely unexpected, and wonder where that came from.

And some things, much to my delight, I still haven’t stopped wanting.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.