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We’ll Be Counting Scars

Posted on by D. Parker

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Doesn’t age have any advantages? I still don’t sleep well. Stars glistening, moon beaming, I think of bills, appointments, problems… I make lists, read, try to write (curse your inevitable betrayal writer’s block), and tried to simultaneously organize and turn off my thoughts.

It gives too much time for reflection. I ponder if my life would be easier if I had a hero. He can’t be just any hero; the term so loosely used nowadays. He’s gotta be strong…he’s gotta be sure… and he’s gotta be larger than life….my exhausted brain sighed, you’re just tossing and turning, with that Bonnie Tyler song in your head. I think of heroes as I slip into the arms of the sandman.

1hero18As a teen, I was a soap opera junkie. I couldn’t get enough of the endless tangled story lines, because like sands through the hourglass, so was that phase of my life.

I was breathless as Bo, a streetwise Hercules roared in on his motorcycle and saved Hope from a fate worst than death (really?). Her excessively cumbersome 80s wedding dress bunched up, arms around her hero, they rode off on his fiery steel steed, impossibly large 80s hair rarely moving in the wind.

Strangely, I didn’t find them nearly as amusing once I had some soap trials and tribulations myself.

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We love superheroes because we are them. We may not have the capes or gadgets or tights (ok, some have tights), but who hasn’t felt like they’re from another planet? Been of two minds? Felt like we could do more? Wanted to save people? To help? To do good? Felt guilty because we could have done more? Tried to prove ourselves? Wanted things back the way they were before something horrible happened?

Life gives us chances to be heroes or villains.1hero19

Chances for joy and loss.

Chances for creation and destruction.

Sometimes, scars are born, on the surface and others deep inside. Too often seen as disfigurements, as imperfection when they’re actually signs of resilience. So much is written in the scars. Never the same, but no longer bleeding, no longer open. Healed.

We can heal. We may never be exactly the same as we were.
We may never get back to our ‘old self’.
Things may never get back to ‘normal’.
There’s no time limit for healing, it takes as long as it takes. 1hero5

It doesn’t matter how many times we get knocked down and there’s no time limit on getting back up.

Hopefully, not destroying everything around us in the healing process.

So we rise again and again, getting and giving help along the way.

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Author:

Very me

91 thoughts on “We’ll Be Counting Scars”

  2. I had the soap love affair with Steve (Patch), and Kayla LOL. I still can’t hear the song “Lady In Red” without a stir of emotions. 😉 Here’s to waking up every morning, and putting on our superhero capes. Love this post! G-uno

    Reply

    1. Loved their storyline too…and so many others.
      Thank you so much for the reblog and the kind words. 🙂
      Hope this day is good to you. 🙂

      Reply

  5. Great post Donna – every time I’ve been knocked down I’ve gotten back up and eventually it was for the better. Sometimes I, like you mentioned, didn’t get right back up (some were real very tough roads to travel) but when I did – I didn’t look back with tired eyes, but eyes of learning. Like I said, this was a good post ~

    Reply

    1. Thank you, Mary. That’s something I don’t think people talk about enough, how long it can take to heal or to get back up, and that’s it’s ok.
      I love your thought of not looking ‘back with tired eyes, but eyes of learning’. 🙂
      Thank you for dropping by, you always have so much to add. 🙂
      Hope this day is being kind to you. 🙂

      Reply

    1. Hop on, Teagan, plenty of room, always. 🙂
      That’s what my Grandmother always said, just pull up your bootstraps and keep going. 🙂
      Hope this week is bringing you some quiet and some comfort. 🙂
      Megahugs. 🙂

      Reply

  7. My dad and my 2nd husband were addicted to soap operas. The ones they liked were on different channels.

    Super heroes are over-rated. They expect as much of themselves as they do of anyone living in the same house with them. 🙂

    Reply

    1. I don’t know how many I watched, of course, many of them are gone now, but I loved them. 🙂

      We’re all superheroes, in our own way. 😉

      Reply

  12. I love this!
    “Sometimes, scars are born, on the surface and others deep inside. Too often seen as disfigurements, as imperfection when they’re actually signs of resilience. So much is written in the scars. Never the same, but no longer bleeding, no longer open. Healed.”
    You’re right we all eventually heal and we must get back up again.
    You’re right we are all heroes in some form or other!

    PS: I also have writer’s block – BIG TIME!!! I feel like my brain has turned to mush 🙁
    I can’t imagine you having a block – you write effortlessly 🙂

    Reply

    1. I think most writers have it from time to time, for various reasons. Hopefully both of ours will pass and soon. 🙂
      Thank you for the kind words and the encouragement. 🙂
      Maybe it’s just Spring Fever. 😉

      Reply

  13. I love this post. I love the way you use humor to make or illustrate your points. And I love this line: “because like sands through the hourglass, so was that phase of my life.”

    LOL,..quick and witty…

    Reply

    1. Thank you so much, Rob, imagine what my brain was like when I used to sleep…I don’t remember if it was better or worse, faster or slower. 😉

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      1. Really. And to think, whenever Lois rejected him, all he needed to do is whip off those eyeglasses and “shazam.” No “shazam” was Captain Marvel. But you get the picture.

      2. He probably wanted Lois to learn to love Clark for who he was, not just be dazzled by the lure of a superhero. 🙂

  16. You’re right sweetie, no time limit on healing. It takes as long as it takes.Sometimes your superhero can speed things up if you can find one.
    I’m lucky these days to get 4 hours a night so I can really empathise with you. My brain goes into overdrive and just won’t close down.As for writing, I can o things in my head but haven’t written for two years now. I’m halfway through a chapter in a book. If you have a size 14 boot I suggest a swift kick up the Khyber Pass wouldn’t go amiss.
    When you have trouble sleeping catch me on skype and I’ll bore you to sleep.
    xxx Massive Hugs xxx

    Reply

    1. lol Oh David, you’re so funny and sweet. Sorry to hear you had trouble with sleep as well, sadly I think it’s more and more common now.
      I guess I’ll give you the same advice I gave myself, just write, don’t worry, just write. 🙂
      You could never bore me. 🙂
      All the best. 🙂
      Massive hugs.

      Reply

      1. Nope, the writing doesn’t want to come. A bigger boot may be needed.
        I don’t mind really, I have done five books, do I need to fill a library? There are enough bad books as it is.
        Thank you for the very kind words Donna. Vary much appreciated.
        xxx Hugs Galore xxx

      2. My boot isn’t working well either, so I’ve decided to coax the writing back with chocolate, if that doesn’t work I need to break out the big guns, I’m not sure what that is if chocolate doesn’t work, but…
        Five books, wow, that’s wonderful, yes, fill a library or two. I doubt they were bad, I’ve read your blogs. 🙂
        Hope this day is being good to you. I did something this morning that terrified me and I got through it so I’m feeling good now. 🙂
        Massive Hugs. 🙂

  18. Very encouraging, Thank you very much. I did a workshop on structure at the Sydney Writer’s Festival last year and learned about Joseph Campbell’s take on the hero’s journey. Our lives are so much like that and I now have to remind myself not to quit in Act III and keep persevering for the happy ending…or at least a pause before the next adventure begins.

    Reply

      1. I hope so too for you too. When too many adventures come at once, I resort to the power “nap” and just try to get a breather wherever I can. My Dad just sold the family beach house, which means the absolute world to me and now we have a huge packing and the unpacking and rearranging all the house effort. Yikes. I am telling myself that something might good must be waiting for us just around the corner! It must!

      2. It’s true, you have to stay hopeful other wise this already overwhelming world just gets to be too much. The only good part I ever found about packing, it was an opportunity to give away items. 🙂
        All the best. 🙂

  22. You realize you’re a shooting star, don’t you, Donna? I’m serious. Bright and strong and quite fabulous. But with no flame-out in sight.

    Hey, “Days of Our Lives” was my early ’80s soap, too, when I worked the second shift in the newsroom and went in right afterward. 😉 Talk about sands through the hourglass. Those were …

    Reply

    1. Thank you kindly, Mark, now I have Poison’s ‘Shooting Star’ in my head…”A small town girl with big time dreams
      But nothing’s ever as it seems” – actually that works too. 😉
      I wasn’t even sure Days was still on until a couple of months ago, I thought most of the soap were that bygone era thing. 🙂

      Reply

      2. Nope, nice try, didn’t work, even Elton John didn’t work, still Poison. I blame hairspray and spandex, aka, the 80s. 🙂

  23. We can heal. We may never be exactly the same as we were.
    We may never get back to our ‘old self’.
    Things may never get back to ‘normal’.
    There’s no time limit for healing, it takes as long as it takes.”

    Oh so true! Thanks for sharing this. Now where’s that superhero I’ve been looking for?! 🙂

    Reply

    1. If you find any, let me know. lol 😉
      Thank you for the kind words and for stopping by, best part, I found your blog. 🙂
      Hope this day is good to you, Ann. 🙂

      Reply

    1. Ian, thank you so much for the reblog and the lovely words, you’re always so generous and so kind. 🙂
      Thinking that I can inspire and make people smile inspires me and makes me smile – what a lovely cycle! 🙂

      Reply

  27. My teenage years were spent watching ‘my so-called life’, which is probably just given away my age!
    But soap opera’s, just like my take on superheroes and their stories, show the way that I tend to swing towards the bad guy. I mean, I preferred the joker to Batman and that is just the beginning… I also prefer Loki to Thor, and I could go on but I think you are getting the picture 🙂

    Reply

  28. It was Super Hero Dress Up Day at school today and the Vice Principal forgot. I told she didn’t need to dress up because as a teacher, she is a super hero. And I meant it. Parents, teachers, bloggers, everyone can be a superhero. And when we get tired of saving the world we can curl up on the couch with a cup of coffee and watch Bo and Hope save Salem from whatever disaster has befallen it now. (well I think Bo is gone at the moment, but…)

    Reply

    1. It’s true, we can all be the hero or heroine of any story as long as we believe and do the right thing.
      I miss the Bo and Hope days in DOOLS, but think of ho heroic it is not to have them together, all that hairspray was probably destroying the environment. lol 😉

      Reply
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    1. Wow, Ian, what a lovely welcome back gift! I’m pleased to be back and barring any unforeseen circumstances (just waiting for yet another shoe to drop, hopefully not a whole closet full of them this time) I hope to stay. Thank you for reblogging this, much appreciated. I hope you have been well and happy, wishing for a wonderful combination of both for us, my friend. Best wishes and hugs xoxo

      Reply

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