Weeks and weeks ago I injured my nail bed.
Today, I can’t recall what happened–where I was, what I was wearing, the actual nature of the injury–all I have is the flash of pain, a brief memory in my grey matter.
But my nail remembers. A week or so the point of pain on the nail grew, a yellow-grey mangled piece of keratin. It grew jagged, like the tiles of an old roof after a windstorm. The injury impacted me far more than I realized.
Just now the injured part has grown to the tip of the nail, and the irregular edge snags threads and papers, interrupting my day: “Hello. Here is the memory of a pain you tried to forget.”
Sometimes people ask me why I got to therapy.
I usually stammer out an answer about how I don’t mind paying someone listen to my problems.
If I’m quite feisty I’ll say that I think that no one’s childhood was perfect and neither are our coping mechanisms, so it doesn’t hurt to talk things over with a professional.
It’s not wrong.
But, maybe its mostly because even the things I try to forget snag me sometimes, and I think it’s okay to look at my nail (or my soul) and know that thee injuries will happen, but so can healing.
I might have been hurt.
But my nail
(and my experiences!)
can continue to
G
R
O
W
.