Your wounds rubbing against mine. Past traumas seemingly forever entwined within me.
I used to love collecting rocks when I was a kid. My favorite were the smooth shiny ones that had gone through the buffing machine. Rough edges broken off by the slow rotation of tumbling against the edges of other rocks. It must be pretty chaotic in the tumbler for those rocks. Dark and constantly in a disorienting spin where there is no up and seemingly no way out. And if a rock had feelings, it must be uncomfortable to be tossed around and painful to have pieces of themselves knocked away by others sharp edges. But eventually if the revolving cycle is completed, then the rock evolves into something extraordinary.
I think sometimes when my hard edges of past traumas rub against others hard edges of trauma, I just stop the rotation. I feel the pain and tell myself that it shouldn’t hurt this much. That if it were right it would be easy. And I may dismiss them from my life to find something smoother. Yet I’m realizing that it isn’t the shallow and smooth times that refine me. It is the uncomfortable times that either harden or clarify me depending on what I choose to do with those moments. Do I run from those times or do I lean in and allow hard edges to be broken off. Do I hit that red button as soon as I feel the pain, or continue a full rotation cycle so that perhaps something beautiful can emerge at the end.
