The Scars to Prove It

The older he got the easier it was to forgive.

Maybe because it was also getting increasingly easier to forget.

Time seemed to have a way of softening things, of making them fuzzy around the edges.

He too felt softer and fuzzier.

All the edges that he’d so carefully sharpened over the years had all gone a little dull.

Not soon enough to spare him the pain that he’d inflicted on himself with them, though.

Those cuts were by the far the deepest.

That’s the thing that no one told him about carrying around so much resentment towards others:

How much it would impact him.
How much it would cost him.
How much it would hurt him.

Now, all he really wanted was to let it all go, to live his life, to feel like a “normal” person for once.

Most of the time, that felt like a choice he could make.

Sometimes though, he slipped back into his habits of of reliving those old stories, of feeling sorry for himself, of picking at his scabs until they bled.

On those days, he felt as flimsy and transparent as a plastic grocery bag and feared that if anyone came too close, they’d be able to see everything he carried with him inside.

So, he avoided eye contact and kept his distance until he could shore up his walls again and beat all the demons back into their box.

“It’s a good thing I don’t look as bad on the outside, as I sometimes feel on the inside”, he said. “That would probably make it pretty hard to get a seat on the train.”