I have a habit of picking at scabs. I have always been impatient with healing. A while ago, a sliver of a cut appeared near my forehead out of the blue, right near my hairline. Maybe, I had scratched myself while thinking about something hard enough to have my hand on my head. Most of these came and went on their own, of course, so it should’ve healed quickly. But, I kept picking at it whenever it scabbed. It’s gone, but now, the skin is softer, more vulnerable. My wounds always did take longer to heal than most people’s. My healing was always late, never quite on time, because I could not let things be. It was how I was with everything, scabs and all.
Constantly interfering, always managing to put my foot in the door, always doing things—often for the worse—I could not sit still, be idle. On most days, this was a blessing; when it came to waiting, a curse. My patience was not silent. It was loud. I waited well, but I waited by doing things. If there was nothing to do, I found something regardless. If I could not do much about a wound, I started picking at it. If my heart was not yet open, I bent it into shape. It was how I had always gone about things. I wish I could claim some novel approach to this, how I am changing this about myself, but it would be a blatant lie. Perhaps, we did not have to change all about ourselves, only accept it.
All I know about it is that the wounds do heal, even with my hindrance. The new skin on my forehead won’t stay tender for long, and my heart is open despite me having to bend it into staying that way. What more could I want? If I changed everything, how long would it be before I stopped being myself? We were who we were because of, not despite, our flaws. I was the most impatient patient man on the planet. It was always going to be that way.