I bruise easily. Sometimes not even sure how they happen. They just appear. Sometimes I remember them well. That corner of the coffee table or the edge of the kitchen counter seem to leave marked memories of our unwelcomed encounters. 

The thing about bruises is the color doesn’t really appear until later. They start out a bit red maybe, and tender, but don’t really show their true colors until days and sometimes weeks later. It is as if they can’t make up their mind what color truly fits them. Will it be blue? green? maybe yellow? They even increase in size at times from their original shape. And it seems I can never predict when these bruises will heal. 

When will they go away? When can I stop covering them up?

I have found emotional/relational healing to mimic bruising and physical healing.   At the first, there is empathy for your pain. People respond with all the typical statements.

“Ouch! Oh, I know that must hurt!” 

“You okay?”

“Need anything?”

and perhaps “How can I help?”

In the moment, depending on the severity of the initial wounding, these kind platitudes are often unheard as one focuses mainly on the felt pain. Sometimes the one in pain doesn’t even know how to respond to the concerns of others. Not that the responses aren’t comforting and needed, they just come at the very start of the healing process. Everyone is baffled and surprised. Life wasn’t supposed to be this way. 

Why now? Why this? What now? What’s this?

Yet, those who were there at the start can sometimes wonder why you are still healing days, weeks, months…. maybe years later. 

“Oh, that still hurts?”

“You’re still not okay?”

“Isn’t there anything you can do for that?”

“Maybe you should see someone about that.”

Recently, someone told me it was difficult to be there in my healing process. It was mainly because I wasn’t the person I used to be. Things seemed less bright. Times with me were a bit dreary and dull. I don’t disagree. Life had sent some emotional bruises my way. And my colors started changing. I don’t know when the healing will be complete. When will I, or others, not be able to “see” it anymore? 

When will it not feel tender to the touch? 

I can’t answer this. Not yet.

They say time heals all wounds. Most of us have found this to be a false statement. The healing depends on the wounding. Some wounds leave permanent scars. Perhaps they go unnoticed until someone points it out. Asks a question. Then you remember. Sometimes wounds leave you with a limp. A cast. A prosthetic.

Either way, the wounds change you in various ways.  

Wounds will come. They hurt. They surprise. They teach. They change us.

My longing is for my woundings to continue to create a more empathetic, compassionate me. I have found an understanding I never had before for those who have been hurt like this before me. Those who have similar woundings understand to a better extent what it “feels like” even though each one has their own pain to bear. 

For now, I am just watching the colors change knowing they do, and they will.