Scabs

When I was a kid I remember lots of skin't up knees and elbows and hands and even chins from bike wrecks, falling off the many things I thought I was monkey enough to climb and countless other mishaps.  Back then we'd air out our scratches and cuts.  Momma wouldn't let us cover them up.  I guess the feeling was, at least in our neck of the woods, that scraps needed to scab up to heal.  Putting a bandaid on the boo-boo wouldn't let it scab over.  The place stayed too moist.  And in moisture germs would root and take hold.

Luckily as an adult I never have accidents like I did when I was a kid.  Haven't had to worry about things on my body healing like in the 70's.  But the past three years I've had wounds.  The doctor made kind.  Seems the way to healing these days is put creams on a wound and cover it up.  It's strange to me.  When I change bandages I look down at a gross, moist cut and think, "How is this going to heal if it doesn't scab over??" 

Maybe it's just the types of wounds I have that require covering.  Or maybe the medical field has discovered germs are best kept out with creams and bandages?  I don't know.  My impression is what I learned as a kid, scabbing over keeps out the germs. Though I do remember how angry a lot of those scabbed over areas became with ugly red outlining the place on my skin.  (Note: I do follow doctor's orders.)

Gross though it were, I remember loving picking the scabs off a bad place I had caused by a bike wreck or such.  Once it was really dried out it was fun to pick the edges off, a little each day.  Cuts seemed to heal outside to in.  The outside picking the scab off didn't hurt, till I got toward the middle.  So that days operation would end a little more dried out.  The outer edge always outlined in the angry red.  I can remember becoming impatient and the scabbed over area would eventually begin to itch.  So through being impatient and the itching I'd finally just rip that last little piece of scab off.  It hurt a little.  But it was over in a flash.  Often that tiny little unhealed area would have a tiny little scab.  But it was never as fun to doctor.  

Wounds aren't always physical.  Sometimes, and most people, have the emotional kind too from all type of reasons.  And most of the time different people, from professional to non (like me as a kid) have all kinds of opinions on healing those.  Scab over or keep moist....... 

Mom always told me that picking off scabs on my skin instead of leaving them alone to fall off would leave a scar.  I remember momma fussing at me, telling me to "not pick at it".  I wonder if that was true. If mom was right.  Kid's skin scars tend to heal and disappear much easier than adults.  I guess because the skin of youth heals better?  I also wonder if scabs of a new emotional trauma in life, if picked at, turn into scars.  Is it better to leave a emotional scab on to visit from time to time for years to come, slowly examining it until it falls off on it's own will leave less of a scar?  Or is it better to pick at the scab a little each day and then rip off the hurt middle for healing?   Perhaps one way leaves a person suffering in a sense from an emotional injury for years.  The other ends the suffering fast-although with a scar which is always seen.  Which is better?..........   

Everybody is different and each situation is as well.  I'd venture to say that a person deals with things that pop up in their lives in different ways.  Maybe something happens and they want to rip that scab off right away without regard to long term scar while something happens to them at a different point in their life and they want to ponder on it for a while.

My view, although hard to hold true to in some things, is that it's best to deal with things today than spend so much time in the future pondering.  Dealing with whatever is happening today is much better than revisiting and trying to heal a little at a time in the future.  Although I believe scarring can be a problem in most situations a scar is not always a bad thing. Looking down at a scar reminds us of a past event, healed.  But we can also look at that scar to remember and appreciate lessons learned and to not allow the same mistakes to re-occur in the future.  

It's not good to live in the past which we cannot change nor live in the future wasting time dreaming of what might be, good or bad, neither of which may ever happen.  We must live today.  In what is really going on.  Dealing with, enjoying life, learning lessons as each come.

This rambling post is enough for today. Meant it to be short and sweet but I'm getting a little long winded on a silly subject and must stop.  I think it's time to get back to the ole timey Christmas cartoons as well as the Christmas Hallmark Channel movies. They make every wound better.