The Big Stick

Lying in the hospital bed last week, I turned my face away from the nurse and squished my eyelids together as tightly as I possibly could. I braced for that "big stick" she'd warned about a few seconds before.

Then, in a second, the pain from the stick was over. A deep ache remained in my arm with the IV, but it wasn't a pain like that initial stick. Just an ache, which eventually faded to a soreness, which I became accustomed to almost to the point I forgot it was there... almost.

Now several days after that IV was removed, bruises line both my arms and hands reminding me of the many "big sticks" I endured those several days in the hospital. My normal routine is interrupted regularly as those bruises send a twinge of pain through my arm stopping whatever I was trying to do, but I know that pain will cease with time just as the bruises will disappear, leaving only a tiny dot of a scar on each hand where the IVs were.

But these bruises remind me of so much more than my physical pain that is fading away. They are a blessed promise that these "big sticks" I've been enduring for the last several weeks of my life -- these huge life-changing events that I've tried to turn my face away from and squish my eyelids together dreading the hurt -- the pain they are causing me today will, too, fade with time.

I signed my divorce papers today. Although I'm completely ready to move on with this next stage of my life, I have been dreading those papers like a terrible needle. I knew in the hospital that I needed the IV, that it was a necessity for my health to improve; in the same way, I know that I need these papers to be signed for my situation in life to improve.

As my pen scribbled across the paper once, twice, three times, it was over. Much like that "big stick" is over in a second, so was the dreaded signing of those papers. Now all that is left is an ache, a feeling of failure... but along with that feeling of failure is a clear determination not to make the same mistakes again. To do it better the next time. To love harder. To give everything I have and not let failure be an option.

I know that my heart will be bruised for a little while, but the healing ache of moving on is one I embrace! I'd rather be healing than hurting like I have been doing for a long time.

This "big stick" is going to heal. I am going to be better for it. My future is going to be better because of it. One day the pain will be so distant in my memory that I will have to make a real effort to recall it.

I look forward to that day.

But for now, I'm nursing my bruises and giving them time to heal.