I currently have an open wound on the back of my head from the accident. I haven’t seen it. I could look at pictures. I don’t want to.
After I had the staples removed, which wasn’t close to as painful as my imagination anticipated, I had to start a daily routine of tending to the wound 3 times a day.
Here is the routine:
My wonderful wife (3 times a day!) cleans my wound with a Q-tip.
She then applies acetic acid to a little pad and “packs” (I hate that word as much as you) it into the open hole in my head. A little additional information you didn’t need, you can see a litttttle bit of my skull.
She then applies a gauze pad.
She then wraps it with a bandage.
When it’s time, I unwrap the bandage from around my head and remove the gauze pad which always has some amount of puss and blood on it.
I put my head under water and soak the packed pad which makes it much easier to pull from my head.
Once removed (always thoroughly soaked in puss and blood) I soak my open scalp under water. Sometimes I’ll use baby shampoo to clean it by patting with my palms.
I dry my hair and let the wound air dry.
Then Beth starts over at step one. Rinse and repeat.
Here’s where the metaphor for life comes in.
At the beginning of this, almost every step made me cringe. I’ll tell you, appreciate the flesh on your head a little more today. Because a Q-tip touching what was never meant to be touched, is unsettling. Having something packed into your head, uncomfortable. Putting your exposed skull (albeit a tiny portion) under water to be pelted by drops, weird.
The first couple days of this were not fun. It wasn’t that it was super painful, it wasn’t. It wasn’t that it was even that bad. It was just…unsettling, uncomfortable, weird…
By the second week it wasn’t that bad at all.
By the third week I was throwing that head under water and Beth was poking me with Q-tips while I continued to work at my desk.
Things can be really uncomfortable, scary, and hard at first, but the more you do them, the less uncomfortable they become. This metaphor applies to everything. A major one I can think of is public speaking. Public speaking is unsettling, uncomfortable, downright terrifying (for most. Don’t want to hear from you if you enjoy public speaking). But my experience with public speaking is: the more you do it, the easier it becomes.
This goes for everything. With time, hard things become easier.
Even having your skull prodded by a Q-tip, acetic acid, and shower water.
Who knew?
No Coincidences 