I sat here today, waiting on hold which seems is becominng the norm of business today, and I let my mind wander while looking at my right arm. There are lots of scars, most very small, all over my arm, and more closer to my hand than up my arm past the elbow.
There is one particular scar which alway makes me really just loose all time and space: it is on the inner part of my right wrist. This scar I remember well. I had just had an argument with my boyfriend at the time, and he was saying some things which were hurting me. I don't remember exactlty what he was saying, all I do know is I was crying and feeling like there was no hope, and I didn't want to keep doing this. My Mom, by this time, had been through four marriages and divorces, and I just didn't want my life to go that way.
While this boyfriend was talking away, and usually shouting some as I do remember he liked to be heard, I was sitting in his truck (POS) and I picked up a small knife he had lying on the floor. He kept going on and on, never looking at me, to seeing if I was even listening. I recall his voice become more and more distant, to where I finally couldn't hear him anymore, it was just a low monotone in the backgroud. I had stopped hearing the traffic sounds, and all the sounds of the neighborhood. Then the lights went out for me, and I guess the switch broke or the fuse was completly blown, as I have never been able to recall those few minutes lost.
The next thing I knew, I was in the bathroom with the boyfriend and someone else holding my wrist under the sink water. It wasn't my Mom as she was at work. Then I started to focus on the moment and realized I was bleeding quite badly, and all the red water was from me. The boyfriend continued to go on and on, but now on a different subject: how stupid I was. If anyone knows anything about me, it is, no one calls me stupid! I fought back all the blackness and bluriness of the picture I was seeing and began to see red, not the blood from my wrist, but red focused on the boyfriend. Perhaps I was really stupid: I should have used the knife on him, not on me!
The other person wrapped my wrist up, there was some discussion as to whether I would need stitches, and boyfriend decided I didn't, it would cost too much. I had lost a lot of blood, more than a shaving cut, but the person didn't think it was hospital worthy. So, I just decided to take the rest of the day off, told boyfriend to go home, which he happily did without question as to whether I would be alright until my Mom came home. I know I hide the bandages from Mom, during school and work. It soon healed, at least enough to where it wasn't noticable, and I eventually wore a leather band on that wrist for some time.
Boyfriend and I broke up later that year, after yet another experience in which he showed a very yellow side of his personality. When we did break up though, I got him back for all the horrible things he had said to me, his lack of caring about me, and his physical abuse. I seriously kicked the shit out of him. My uncle was witness to this, asked if I was okay, and then went on as he saw I had things under control. That was the last time I heard or saw boyfriend.
Now, 30 years later, I look at this scar, and think, "...well, at least when I did start to do it, I did it the right way, vertical instead of horizontal (like all the movies)!" This is what I think of the small scar now, how I at least at the direction correct if I was ever going to really follow-through with that action again.
