A Book I'm Going to Write
Let
When I was fourteen I ran across the dock barefoot at my family lake house in Madison, Ohio.
The dock was wooden, it was old and splintering and a death trap.
All it took was five steps, five whisks of my feet against the decrepit wooden surface, for me to feel an immediate blistering pain in my foot.
A splinter, a huge slab of wood lodged into my heel.
Splinters have always fascinated me. That sounds so lame, I realize.
A splinter rests rather peacefully under the surface of your skin. At first glance even it may appear to be a birth mark, a freckle maybe, nothing out of the ordinary. It doesn't even break the surface, doesn't cause a commotion.
Yet with precision one can carefully extract this thing that does not quite belong.
And so my father took his tweezers and prodded away at the heel of my foot. I cried because it hurt, and because it took so long, and because I was embarrassed, and because I didn't understand why we couldn't just leave the damn thing to live inside my heel. I figured it could do me no harm now, I could continue my day simply with an extra sliver of wood inside of me.
That's how I've felt about you for so long now.
A part of you lives inside of me; maybe its all our old memories, or its the piece of me that still loves you so fully, or its the anxiety in me that doesn't want you to find someone else, or maybe its the hope in me that still believes we will end up together. Whichever it is, even a combination of all of the above, it sits in the empty spaces of my chest and resides there as I continue on with my life.
At times, it does no damage and causes no harm. It simply waits idly. I am always aware that it is there but it does not hinder me in any way.
Other times it is excruciating pain, it is discomfort and sadness, it is fear that it will never go away.
I've let you stay here, in my heart, for fear that extracting you would only cause me more pain, embarrassment, and suffering. I didn't understand why I couldn't simply go on with my life as I had before but with you ghost roaming inside.
But when you get shot, you must remove the bullet or it can cause further internal damage. When you are stung by a bee it is important to remove the stinger. When you have a splinter, although it may hurt, you extract the wood. When you are heartbroken and you find that the one you love no longer loves you, remove them. Pour through old pictures, explore old memories, let yourself cry until you fall asleep and wake up to a new morning and dried salty cheeks.
It is painful to remove the splinter, it may even hurt more than when it first lodged itself under your skin. But your skin will grow over where you cut through, it will grow tougher, and you will feel better.
The dock was wooden, it was old and splintering and a death trap.
All it took was five steps, five whisks of my feet against the decrepit wooden surface, for me to feel an immediate blistering pain in my foot.
A splinter, a huge slab of wood lodged into my heel.
Splinters have always fascinated me. That sounds so lame, I realize.
A splinter rests rather peacefully under the surface of your skin. At first glance even it may appear to be a birth mark, a freckle maybe, nothing out of the ordinary. It doesn't even break the surface, doesn't cause a commotion.
Yet with precision one can carefully extract this thing that does not quite belong.
And so my father took his tweezers and prodded away at the heel of my foot. I cried because it hurt, and because it took so long, and because I was embarrassed, and because I didn't understand why we couldn't just leave the damn thing to live inside my heel. I figured it could do me no harm now, I could continue my day simply with an extra sliver of wood inside of me.
That's how I've felt about you for so long now.
A part of you lives inside of me; maybe its all our old memories, or its the piece of me that still loves you so fully, or its the anxiety in me that doesn't want you to find someone else, or maybe its the hope in me that still believes we will end up together. Whichever it is, even a combination of all of the above, it sits in the empty spaces of my chest and resides there as I continue on with my life.
At times, it does no damage and causes no harm. It simply waits idly. I am always aware that it is there but it does not hinder me in any way.
Other times it is excruciating pain, it is discomfort and sadness, it is fear that it will never go away.
I've let you stay here, in my heart, for fear that extracting you would only cause me more pain, embarrassment, and suffering. I didn't understand why I couldn't simply go on with my life as I had before but with you ghost roaming inside.
But when you get shot, you must remove the bullet or it can cause further internal damage. When you are stung by a bee it is important to remove the stinger. When you have a splinter, although it may hurt, you extract the wood. When you are heartbroken and you find that the one you love no longer loves you, remove them. Pour through old pictures, explore old memories, let yourself cry until you fall asleep and wake up to a new morning and dried salty cheeks.
It is painful to remove the splinter, it may even hurt more than when it first lodged itself under your skin. But your skin will grow over where you cut through, it will grow tougher, and you will feel better.