November 2007

“How are you doing?” people ask, kindly. Today the answer is, “Holy cow. It is October.”

For the first time in my life, I am both conscious of and thankful for time marching on. There was a while there where I suspected it would not; that I would be forced to remain stuck in late May surrounded by a mountain of soggy tissues. Surprisingly, though, time moved on; May left, June left, the mountain of soggy tissues went away, and the wound finally stopped bleeding.

I have a scab now. It’s huge and rough and deep red, and I’m careful not to get it wet, careful not to pick at it. I scratch around it and try to ignore it,  mindful of just letting it heal and flake away the way it needs to. It itches badly out of the blue, it pulls open and bleeds a tiny bit sometimes, catching me off guard. It will probably itch more as it heals, and then there will be a scar, and then the scar will fade, and then it will become a story of a thing that happened Before and that will be a good day, but it is not today. However it IS October, and I am grateful, although I can’t quite believe it, and I am alright.