Looking in the mirror, a pensive short essay

When I shared this with you before, I called it "Scars." After writing on it (finishing it?) more today, the title didn't suit anymore. Here's the most recent version complete with a new title. Skip to the new part.

In the Mirror, (c) J.M. Henrie

Kate stared at the back of her hand, looking at a long red scrape in particular which led toward the bandage on her thumb - the aftermath of accidentally brushing against a piece of broken glass. When she tired of tracing the thin bloody line, she turned her attention to the skin around it. It was pale and dry. If she looked closely, she imagined she could see every pore. She flexed her fingers and watched the muscles and sinew move underneath the skin. Her veins were very, very blue.

Her eyes moved to her right forearm, to a pale white scab that came of scratching a mosquito bite one too many times. She had scars on her back, shoulders, and torso from various accidents throughout her life, permanent reminders of painful experiences.

The human body was a marvelous thing, Kate thought, continuing to wave her fingers but watching the inside of her wrists now, in fascination. Its ability to recover from injury - even its very existence - was nothing short of miraculous.

Finished playing with the muscles in her hands, Kate’s hand strayed to her lower back where the largest scar was located. It was left over from a painful lancing when she contracted a staph infection when she was sixteen. The details of the memory had faded, but Kate could still remember how she cursed and cried and gritted her teeth when the nurse had lanced it. Just touching the scar reminded her how scared she’d been to show anyone the sore, and of the day when the pain of hiding it became greater than the fear of lancing and she had finally succumbed.

The scar didn’t pain her anymore. The wound had healed oddly, leaving a slight lump in the skin, but causing no further problems. Kate had moved on to other bumps and bruises, occasionally adding another scar to her collection. They were all memories of pain, of lessons learned or simple misfortunes. Though the pain of the experience was gone, the memories - and their physical representations - would never be.

It was part of life to have misfortunes, Kate thought. It was certainly part of life to make and hopefully learn from mistakes. And there were plenty of other wounds that left no physical trace but an occasional ache inside. There were things she would carry to her grave.

But an occasional ache didn’t mean unhealed. The difference was how often she ached, and how severely. The memory of pain was different from real hurt. Sometimes it was even a benefit, reminding her of past lessons she had no desire to relearn.

She was a new university freshman and excited about riding her bicycle to school for the first time. She thought she knew the way, but a turn taken too soon led her to the lower part of campus, from which the only routes to upper campus were a long series of stairs and a winding ramp she was too new to know about yet.

When she realized what had happened, she had simply picked up her bike and carried it up the six long flights of stairs. People kept stopping her to ask if she needed help, but each time she replied in the negative, determined to make it to the top by herself. When she finally reached the crest of the hill, she put down the bike and took a moment to breathe. And in the following moment of pride that she had overcome what had seemed a great challenge, she forgot how sweaty and undignified she must have looked.

It was interesting to note, Kate reflected now, thinking about similar athletic accomplishments, how often pride in a challenge well met correlated with some indignity. Getting her hands dirty, so to speak. Working hard, sometimes harder than she had planned for or expected.

That was her favorite kind of challenge: one she felt she could accomplish on her own merits, where she didn’t have to accept help from others. There was no way around it: Kate was an independent soul. She learned a lot about her own capabilities from such challenges, and for the most part, she enjoyed it. It was the challenges that taught her about her limits and weaknesses she didn’t like so much.

There was the summer when she had felt abandoned by someone she loved; the day her friends surprised her with a birthday party in the morning and she took her dog to be euthanized that afternoon. There were the stories behind almost every scar she had on her body, and the day a dear childhood friend called her from prison.

In each of those situations, and many others, there had been no easy way out, and no way to work through her complicated feelings alone. She had poured out her soul to God, and close friends, repeatedly. Some days were harder than others. Sometimes her emotions were so mixed up, whole days passed where she didn’t feel the same from one moment to the next, and she wondered if this was how it felt to go insane.

And yet. She had made it through each challenge, and although the scars on her soul still hurt, sometimes so badly she questioned whether they had really scabbed over at all, she knew. An occasional ache didn’t mean unhealed. The memory of pain was different from real hurt.

In the perspective that hindsight provided, Kate could even see a theme in each of those scars: that no matter how badly she wanted to be able to do everything herself, overcome everything herself, it was not on her own merits that she survived as well as she had. It was on another’s, one whose merits and goodness were perfect, who knew many sorrows and was acquainted with grief but in the very act of overcoming his own life challenges, he reached a non-exclusive hand behind to help pull others through theirs. It was his purpose, and he accomplished it well and willingly. Because of him, Kate knew she could handle future challenges - if only she could learn to ask for his help when she first needed it, because things always felt so much smoother that way. Not necessarily peaceful, but also not alone in grief.