Our lives are made up of scars underscored by good intentions.
My writers’ group had a short discussion on doing the right thing the other day.
And if you know me, you know that I have difficulty distinguishing how other people determine the difference between right or wrong. If you don’t know me, well, let’s just say, right and wrong are subjective and relies too heavily on how we are raised, our region, and our religion. Maybe I’ll break this concept down more so in the future. In the meantime, let’s focus our attention on my writers’ group.
During our weekly Zoom meeting, one of the writers, we’ll call her Jane, questioned how she could help another writer with an extremely sensitive topic. Another member of the group, we’ll call her Sally, gave positive advice; paraphrased, if you come from a place of caring, you can’t go wrong.
My response, Yea, I don’t know.
There was no sarcasm in my response. Just a lot of swirling thoughts, memories, and questions.
Sally’s statement reminded me of Norman from The Bates Motel. Good ol’ Norm loved his mother so much, he killed her (probably because of the abuse), kept her body in a room on the top floor (which I’m sure was rancid smelling) and slashed any motel guests that reminded him of his beautiful abusive mother. Such a loving guy with good intentions, a place of caring, right? Of course, maybe he was just lonely and needed his victims to stay with him fooorrreeevvveeerrr! At least, Mom and Marion won’t nag him to take out the trash every Wednesday.
Mind you, I didn’t say any of this in my meeting. That group looks at me like I’m crazy half the time anyway. No need to add to their presumptions.
Here’s my point.
We all have scars, whether emotional or physical.
Physical scars leave an imprint on our skin for everyone to see but hesitate to question.
Emotional scars are created by the people we loved. I mean, my heart has never been broken by a stranger. And I don’t think I’m the only one playing in left field with a hockey stick on this one.
Emotional scars are deep wounds that never heal. We can meditate and seek therapy to help us cope with the pain of someone else’s good intentions, but do we really heal? All it takes is a quick verbal jab and that deep rooted wound we hoped had healed, rips open and hurts just as deeply as when the proverbial blade first struck us.
It wasn’t our intent to hurt another, but regardless, the scar remains as a reminder of good intentions. So, next time you have a thought of a good intention, consider the unintended consequences of your actions.