walking wounded
One afternoon, I decided to visit one of the biggest bookstores in Manila in an effort to indulge in my loneliness. It was a refuge for a person searching for answers. And from a book entitled “The Beach”, I found this line,
“I carry a lot of scars.”
Instantly, I made the connection.
Each one of us has had scars from various events that happened in the past. I remember a friend from college who got the butt of the guys’ jokes because of her legs, which would not exactly fit a beauty queen’s profile. However, instead of getting depressed about the incident, she proudly claimed that her legs show more character than that of any fashion model. It has scars: marks from falling off a bicycle on her first try; marks from falling down on the pavement while running after her cousins; marks from falling off their window while imitating one of those “superheroes”; and a few more bumps and bruises. They were all there – dark, irregular shapes that formed like a map to her past. Each scar had a story to tell. She would never trade them for perfectly smooth legs.
Personally, that line from “The Beach” fit my own profile as well. I do carry a lot of scars. I have a big one on my forehead from getting sick with the chicken pox, a month into a new relationship (he’s my husband now). For a while, I had a long one, which stretched from my right ankle up to my right hip. A pesky protruding nail caused that minor fatality that ended my bid for Miss Universe (har! har!) And now I have all these small black spots on my legs due to my allergy attacks. (Medical science is the pits. They couldn’t cure me of my allergies and their wonder drugs leave these unsightly imprints all over my body.)
There are visible scars that I shall bear till the end of my lifetime. But there are invisible scars, too. They are invisible to the naked eye but they are there;I could attest to that. It is not the body that carries them but the soul and the spirit.
I heard about these three girls, so much younger that I am. Yet their own abusive father or brother snatched their youth away from them. Their wounds are not of the flesh alone but of the very core of their being.
I, too, bear such scars. Though mine are brought about by different circumstances. When I was a child, a relative of mine laughed at my initial attempt to sing. My heart was crushed. When I tried to get into a science high school and failed miserably, it not only broke my mom’s hopes for me, it also broke my spirit. And when I found my first love and had to let him go, I knew my wounds would never heal.
On hindsight, for a long time, I believe now that I have been walking wounded on the face of the earth, without even being aware of it. Aren’t we all?
“I carry a lot of scars.”
Instantly, I made the connection.
Each one of us has had scars from various events that happened in the past. I remember a friend from college who got the butt of the guys’ jokes because of her legs, which would not exactly fit a beauty queen’s profile. However, instead of getting depressed about the incident, she proudly claimed that her legs show more character than that of any fashion model. It has scars: marks from falling off a bicycle on her first try; marks from falling down on the pavement while running after her cousins; marks from falling off their window while imitating one of those “superheroes”; and a few more bumps and bruises. They were all there – dark, irregular shapes that formed like a map to her past. Each scar had a story to tell. She would never trade them for perfectly smooth legs.
Personally, that line from “The Beach” fit my own profile as well. I do carry a lot of scars. I have a big one on my forehead from getting sick with the chicken pox, a month into a new relationship (he’s my husband now). For a while, I had a long one, which stretched from my right ankle up to my right hip. A pesky protruding nail caused that minor fatality that ended my bid for Miss Universe (har! har!) And now I have all these small black spots on my legs due to my allergy attacks. (Medical science is the pits. They couldn’t cure me of my allergies and their wonder drugs leave these unsightly imprints all over my body.)
There are visible scars that I shall bear till the end of my lifetime. But there are invisible scars, too. They are invisible to the naked eye but they are there;I could attest to that. It is not the body that carries them but the soul and the spirit.
I heard about these three girls, so much younger that I am. Yet their own abusive father or brother snatched their youth away from them. Their wounds are not of the flesh alone but of the very core of their being.
I, too, bear such scars. Though mine are brought about by different circumstances. When I was a child, a relative of mine laughed at my initial attempt to sing. My heart was crushed. When I tried to get into a science high school and failed miserably, it not only broke my mom’s hopes for me, it also broke my spirit. And when I found my first love and had to let him go, I knew my wounds would never heal.
On hindsight, for a long time, I believe now that I have been walking wounded on the face of the earth, without even being aware of it. Aren’t we all?
posted by soulcraftwriter at 3:40 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home