By Your Scars

There’s a classic story about a father teaching his son a lesson about anger and the permanent damage we can do with our words. It’s called “The Fence”. You probably know it but in case you don’t, here it is:

There was boy who had a bad temper, struggling to control his hurtful words and actions. 

His father gave the boy a bag of nails and told him every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into their wood fence. 

The first day, the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, 

he discovered that it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. 

As he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. 

Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. 

His dad now had him remove one nail for each day that he controlled his temper. 

It took months, one by one, removing a nail for each day but finally all of the nails were gone.  

The father took his son by the hand, led him to the fence and said, "You have done well. But look at the holes in the fence. They fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar, just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. 

It won't matter how many time you say "I'm sorry", the wound is still there.

-Anonymous 

 

This story of course has a great lesson about the long term impact we can have when we are reckless with our words and actions. Even if we feel bad, apologize, and are forgiven, some scars will always remain. 

But this story also provides a metaphor with the damaged fence representing a damaged person. And while we should definitely be careful with one another, the scars we bear become who we are. They are our stories and what makes us unique. We don't see each other as polished pieces of wood, each alike and flawless. We fit together with our friends, chosen family, and partners by the way they see and tend to our scars.  The way they make space for our heartaches, hold our pain, and look straight in the eye of our adversity and don't look away. 

I know you have your scars. 

I know the places it hurts. 

I don't wish those parts of you away. 

I know you by your scars. 

You don’t see me

Do you really SEE the people in your life? Do you let people see YOU? 

Thinking back to my years of being single and having several short, mostly unsatisfying relationships, I’ve often thought, how did that not work out? I’m awesome, other people seem to think that person is awesome, surely we couldn’t be anything but awesome together! 

I was reckless and careless - with myself and others. There was one man in particular that I had a physical relationship with but nothing more. We agreed it wasn’t going anywhere but I toggled between apathy and heartache. I knew I had feelings for him but I also knew I could never be with him. And that felt really confusing. Despite the significant amount of time together and our strong physical connection, he couldn’t see ME. He was respectful and polite and took me on nice dates but no matter how much time we spent together, there was always an indescribable distance between us. I never felt like myself around him and sometimes it felt like that was because I didn't want him to see me and other times it felt like he was never even going to try. Our relationship was purely physical, he didn't need or want to see me. And ultimately, this is why our "relationship" ended. Why was I trusting my body with someone that either didn't care enough to try and see me fully for who I was -or- that I didn't trust to let fully see me? Unfortunately for him, this revelation came at an inconvenient time - on Valentine's Day, mid-thrust after a lovely date. It was over. Right then and I pushed him off and told him he had to leave. I simply said, "I can't do this. You don't see me." I knew in that moment and this moment now that all of it had to do with issues within myself I had to work on, right down to the decision to "date" someone who didn't bother to see me. 

This was an unfortunate pattern for me. I had a very calculated way of doling out vulnerability - I could be physically vulnerable with someone but closed off my emotions. Or the opposite, I could have a deep emotional/intellectual connection but couldn’t also be physically intimate. Failed relationship after failed relationship. That is until I met my husband. I broke all of my rules and I let him see me. Physically naked, mentally naked, emotionally naked. He was it, he actually saw ME. Because I let him. And he didn’t look the other way or try to change me. It was so new and so wonderful for me to just simply be seen. But it also felt like a giant scary risk. If someone could fully see ME, they could fully leave ME. 13 years later, that risk is still there, at any moment he could decide that I am too much, too flawed, too broken, too messy. And walk away. That risk has always been there and always will be. But if I hadn't let him see me, I would've been equally unsatisfied as I was in all my other relationships. The gamble wasn't any less, I just decided by not putting it all on the table I was actually losing more.

So I started practicing this more in my life. With friendships, with work partnerships, and even with strangers. I show up as me, fully, wholly, imperfectly ME. There are still relationships that don't work, that have that same marked distance and feel disingenuous. But when I stopped calculating vulnerability and just showed up as me, when it didn't work, I knew it wasn't because I wasn't showing up. Sometimes it means they didn't show up, or didn't try, or didn't need me in their life, or we just weren't the right fit. But it became a lot easier to find the right moment to part ways and simply say, "You don't see me". But definitively not because I didn't allow them to.