too often scars

“The marks humans leave are too often scars.” 
~John Green~

“Hey!”

“Hi, how are you?”

“I’m well, and you?”

“Fine thank you. How've you been...”

I’ve been working on a concept. I have yet to come up with a real name for it, or chance upon what other people have called it, since I doubt I’m the first to think about it. However, for today’s purposes I’m going to call it the ‘one good turn’ theory.

One good turn (for today) is doing what is expected simply to add a plus to your list of pluses, or perhaps negate a minus. So that you can walk away patting you back feeling like an exemplary human being. or at the very least an okay person. And dare the universe to repay your kindness a hundredfold. Like that conversation. That’s how hallows go, depending on what side I'm on; it’s become so ingrained that most of the time I’m doing it on autopilot. On some days, I mean to actually know how you are, but there are times really it’s an autopilot mode response. Don’t give me those eyes, you know it’s true.

One good turn is passing by that guy and tossing a coin into his little cup. Hell, if you’ve been extra bad (hence extra guilty) or extra good (hence extra magnanimous) it might even be a note. So you can add another thing the universe owes you. Like today you have transformed the universe and done your share to alleviate human suffering. And the universe must not fail to see that. Like in the background there should be a big choir singing Handel’s ‘Messiah’ as you walk away. Okay, that last part is a bit much, but you get my drift.

The reason I’m thinking about that tonight is that I recently mended fences with an old friend. It wasn't an exactly friendly parting and we hadn’t spoken in forever until a couple of weeks ago when apologies were poured out by the torrents and promises were made. And life was back to normal. But I knew it would happen. We’d slip back into the normalcy that was there before. And not the good kind of normal either, the uppity kind.

“The worst type of crying wasn't the kind everyone could see--the wailing on street corners, the tearing at clothes. No, the worst kind happened when your soul wept and no matter what you did, there was no way to comfort it. A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived.” 
~ Katie McGarry~

Because you see, they weren’t apologies to reinstate the friendship for its sake. It was a therapeutic move. To purge the conscience of the weight, to gain some relief. I said sorry, she said it was okay, now we’re friends. We’re good. Cased closed. One less thing to worry about. Hhhmmmm…. It’s human form I guess. I have this other theory, that life is about those who give and give, and those who take and take. So are human interactions. It’s one of those things, just like the reacher-settler phenomenon people don’t usually want to believe. I don’t know why I’m mentioning that; maybe because I feel done in. With giving. And being the bigger person. And being nice. Much good I have been done for all of it. I'll just shop.

A few months ago I was going to write about forgetting. Just forgetting as a concept. You know, past pain, past drama. I had just started doing my research (occasionally I’m not just blabbing from the abundance of my thoughts :)))). And then the news about my friend’s passing came, and I abandoned that for whatever I ended up sharing last month.

Do you ever wonder what would life be like if time didn’t heal everything? I wonder sometimes. If you could remember every single thing with the same rawness as if it was yesterday? In medicine there is this ailment called  the ‘broken heart syndrome’, it’s failure of the literal blood pumping organ, brought on by having your other heart broken, like by a boy or loss or something. If one event, like having a boy tell you that he doesn’t think it’s working , can cause your heart to fail, wouldn't we all die really young?

Would we suffer pain and more pain until we dropped dead? Would those people who have higher thresholds for pain live longer? Would have the human species survived?

Forgetting is a gift, it’s a privilege, and sometimes it’s all you have. Knowing that no matter how much pain you feel right now, no matter how insurmountable the mountain of distress, there will come a day when it won’t be so bad. It will just be an event in the annals of your life, and then it won’t be even there anymore, towed away to make room for new things.

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.” 
~Fernando Pessoa~

Well, it’s just that sometimes forgetting is easier on some than others. Which is why hypnotists have a job at all. I’m thinking about that, going for hypnosis. I hear you should carry someone along so that you aren’t subliminally told to do anything weird. I’d carry Dinah along, she knows karate and her eyes can get very serious (mean) when she wants. Which of course means that she’d have my back. Which in turn means that she’d talk me out of it before the words came from my mouth.

But there is a word for this feeling: defeated. It’s what you get after a whole series of broken-sciencey things slapping you across the face in rapid succession. Like Barney did Marshall with the three slaps of the slap bet. Like what point is there anymore, you know. Not in any I want to be dead sorta way. Just, I dunno, just defeated. Even the girl with all the logic in the world can’t get over this one. And too afraid, maybe  proud, to ask anyone. So she tries to not go completely down, over and over again. Perhaps one day a sun ray will shine with her clarity. Every dog has its day, after all. 

But oi, Lord, shall ever a break be caught....