Do people ever really heal?
Oh, I know that cuts and sores heal, and most broken bones do the same. But what about psychological wounds that are the results of things bad people do to us? I would think people need to be incredibly strong to get over those.
Sadly, I’m not that strong.
I won’t say everything that ever happened to me still haunts me. There are numerous things that don’t.
But some hurts never go away, just as I’m sure at least a couple of things I have done in my life have hurt other people badly.
The two worst days of my life came out of the blue, one in 1979 and one in 2001. Ironically, both were in the month of March. I’m not going to bore you with details here. I’ll just say the one in 1979 basically ended my first marriage and the one in 2001 ended the best job I ever had.
It wasn’t the first time a woman I loved hurt me and it wasn’t the first time a job had been taken away.
The romantic problem is the one that worked out best. While my first marriage lasted less than four years in reality, this November Nicole and I will celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary. Love really is better, as the songs says, the second time around.
That doesn’t mean I have no regrets. While I certainly don’t wish I was still married to my first wife, I consider the marriage the greatest failure of my life and regret my poor performance. Even though she was the one who wanted out, I consider the fault no less than 50 percent mine.
The job was far more traumatic, since the change was through no fault of my own. I had been a metro columnist for five years. I had won awards every year and had a good following. The problem was that a new boss wanted to put his imprint on the paper and I wasn’t his guy.
Completely out of the ozone, I was told I wasn’t going to be a columnist anymore.
In the space of five minutes, what had been a joy became just a job.
I worked there nearly seven more years, first as a reporter and then as business editor, but I never felt happiness again, and I never trusted my employers.
True, I was not physically harassed or sexually abused in either instance. It wasn’t a #metoo situation, and I have tremendous sympathy for the victims of the Cuomos or the Weinsteins or the Cosbys. The fact is people with power have bent those without power to their will for hundreds if not thousands of years.
Andrew Cuomo’s decision to resign his office was the right one, although I can’t recall a Republican resigning for sexual issues since Bob Packwood in 1995. When I looked up the date, I was stunned to see 88-year-old Packwood is still alive. I hope he has calmed down some.
I suppose the important thing to remember is that no one gets out of this world alive, and maybe the only way to approach life is just to do the best we can.
I don’t know if anyone will hurt me in the future.
I do know I will do my best not to hurt anyone else.
That’s really the best I can do.
We are alive…we hurt and mostly we get over it or any least beyond it. Life is like being in school everyday…no tests other than making decisions and then bearing the consequences. Some is good sometimes not so good but we evolve as human beings and it seems to me that a good Human Being carries as many scars as he does smiles,