Picking Scabs

There's something oddly satisfying about fiddling with scabs. A strange gratification comes when, after carefully tugging at the coagulated shield, it breaks free and the sore underneath is exposed. Pink and thin, the skin is sensitive. It is tender, but not notably unpleasant. It is raw. It is real.

For 7 months and 19 days, I've been picking at scabs. 

On June 10th, I landed in America confused, angry, and disoriented. Confused about why I so desperately missed a culture which I barely knew, angry that I had already returned home, and disoriented as I tried to make sense of my mixed and volatile emotions. I was greeted with a "welcome home" from airport employees in Atlanta, but I barely heard them over the conflicting thoughts in my mind, which were noisily vying for attention like spoiled children. I smelled like sweat, poorly air-dried clothes, and a hint of DEET. I smelled like three and a half weeks of rugged tropical biology class in Latin America. I loved it. I clung to it.

In fact, I loved it so much that I didn't shower that night. When I awoke the next morning to the musty smell of an old bedroom, I caught a whiff of my own scent and was reminded that the experience was, in fact, quite real. Comforting. 

Days later, I strung together my memories in a line of pictures. Pictures worth thousands of words that I've already forgotten. The process was cathartic, but crippling. I was exposing sores before they'd been given a chance to heal. The fact was I didn't want them to heal. I wanted desperately to remain angry, confused, and disoriented. I wanted to poke at my thin, pink skin hidden under the fresh scab. I wanted raw. I wanted real.

What happened in those three and a half weeks is still impossible for be to adequately mold into words. It changed and challenged me. I came home different. I feared that if I lost the feelings that I re-entered America with, I would lose part of myself. I systematically and habitually licked my wounds in protest, precluding proper healing in hopes of creating a more permanent mark.

It's interesting to consider what the fear of forgetting does to the human soul. Rather than experiencing life presently, we yearn for the unreachable past and punish any means to move forward. We hop on the hamster wheel of anti-progress, futilely running away from where we are. It's a strange tug-of-war which constantly fluxes, only to change the very next day with an ever-exaggerated backlash. Perhaps we believe that we don't deserve to move on. Maybe we derive more comfort from feeling pain than from the possibility of feeling nothing at all.

As time passes, the oscillations attenuate and I'm able to listen to Julieta Venegas without surging into a debilitating 3-day-funk of missing Panama. Gallo pinto and plantains are comfort foods rich in good memories, not painful teases. However, I still can't bring myself to finish the small remainder of my Cafe Ruiz coffee, although it is far past the acceptable drinking period. Maybe I never will. 

My scabs remain, and although they slowly harden, I still test their vulnerability.

Just one more poke.....