Wounds

Modern life is fast Dear Readers.

We are told that we have to figure out every aspect of our lives prior to starting undergrad. When we find our career path, we are told that we need to do everything as quickly as possible in order to stay ahead. Each job is just another box to check, not a stepping stone to the next promotion.

If we don’t finish as quickly as possible, we describe ourselves as failures.

It is fortunate that most of our lives can be this fast paced. We can contact someone right away. We can get a new job. We can get food at any time in any place. We can virtually watch any television show or movie with a few mouse clicks.

But life itself cannot be sustained in a state of constant activity.

And as we wait for life to catch up to our desires, we die a little on the inside.

I have spoken before on waiting(LINK), and how it is necessary for a good life. However, I did not cover what happens when we try to beat the waiting period and take complete control of life itself.

If we try to force life to move forward instead of letting it run its course, we do not progress, but rather we get hurt.

I found this out the hard way.

My lab has a big mouse project, and it is the focus for our upcoming publication. In some odd turn of events, this task was put on my shoulders. I could not be more grateful for such a great responsibility. I knew how important the project is, and I decided that I would not return to Nashville until I had completed the figure up to my advisor’s specifications.

There was a day when I could wait one more day, but I wanted to be done sooner. I would do anything to just be done.

So I went in to the lab late at night when no one was around, and I went to the Cryostat, which is an apparatus which is used to make tissue sections. Because I was so tired from trying to expedite the process, my arms were a little shaky.

I sliced my thumb open

Utlimately everything we do which hurts us, or those around us, is a direct result of taking life in to our own hands and taking complete control. When we decide to take matters in to our own hands and take life too quickly, we do not just hurt ourselves in the moment, but we also have to face the consequences of said action long afterwards. 

Nothing we do exists in a vacuum.

We lie to hide what we think may hurt ourselves or someone else, and we end up having to lie over and over again, only to be caught in the end. We choose not to do that assignment because we think it is a waste of time, and we end up failing an exam. We ignore a text because we think cutting people out of our lives without warning is the safest way, and in the end we cause unneccessary drama.

The pain we cause towards ourselves or others comes back over and over, just like my Cryostat injury.

This injury thankfully did not require stitches, but it has affected my life far more than I would have predicted. The cut is on the part of my thumb which is used for everything I do. I can’t text, type, or even use a microscope without feeling the cut underneath my bandage.

Many of us want to fix the problems we cause just as quickly as we created them. We want something to do. A conversation, an action, a public announcement, a resignation…anything to take away the discomfort.

We want stitches.

The thing is…stitches are not the fix. 

Our bodies heal on their own.

We use a stitch when the wound is too deep for the cells around the injury to do their job. A stitch brings the cells closer together. When the cells are close enough, they send signals to one another and share information about the injury. As the signaling cascade goes on, the neighboring cells respond as needed.

If I were to have put a stitch in my injury, my body would have responded the exact same way.  Biology, or life itself, takes time. Putting a stitch in an injury does not fix the problem. The only thing we can do is wait for the missing tissue to be replaced.

And it works.

With time, the remnants of our mistakes smoothe out, and there is healing at last.

Now what I need to mention is that this only works if the body is allowed to act as it ought to. Should the cut be infected or I have a rare genetic mutation, my cut would never heal, and I might have had other complications.

This is the same with the wounds in our lives.

We cannot force a problem to be fixed right away with a “stitch,” and we have to let life run as it is supposed to. People will respond however they respond to your situation. There will be confusion and a lot to work out. Regardless of the injury, there will always be a response.

And it’s going to take time.

And it’s going to suck.

But if we just let life run its course and do our best to be the best version of ourselves and allow others to become the best version of themselves…

Everything will be as it was meant to be.