Time Heals

Time heals all wounds. I’ve heard this many times, and I just now thought about it for a while. A dangerous pastime I’m told, but I prefer thinking to many things.

Time is a somewhat relative term, but we all understand it, so I won’t go into the details on that subject. Wounds, however, are not as easily understand as one might think. There are many types: physical, slight, serious, emotional, mental. My question is, are all of them healed by time?

I would like to think so. When I scraped half of my foot off about 3 weeks ago, it would have made me extremely happy to just let it go as it was and let it heal itself. When I had knee surgery, sitting in bed and taking pain medication seemed like the path of least resistance. When a friend is offended by no direct fault on my part, I prefer to just wait until they want to figure it out and get over it. When my grandma died, I would have liked to just find a room in which I could sit alone and cry. My philosophy tends to be that things will work themselves out eventually. If I let things go on their schedule and heal themselves, they eventually will.

But hopefully, you thinking like me and have figured out that this is not the case. As much as I am loathe to admit it, my way is not the best way. Sure, time is a great healer. It gives wounds a chance to breathe and mend without the direct involvement of something that may prove to be harmful. But if time heals all wounds, then doctors of any sort would not exist. If I had left my foot alone to its own devices, no doubt it would have turned on me and gotten infected or something equally as ungrateful. If I had indefinitely laid in bed after my knee surgery, I would have missed out on therapy and weakened my knee for the rest of my life. If I let friends become offended with me, and don’t seek to heal the relationship in an active way, I could lose a friend. If I had sat alone in a room after my grandma passed away, I would have missed all the love and sympathy that I received from my family, and held back all the love and care that I gave to my family.

I admit that I wasn’t sure of my conclusion when I started writing. I am now though. Writing about random thoughts does give them a definite pattern and concrete conclusion. Time does not heal all wounds as some claim, but it does give ample space for thinking. So…Time, I thank you for your help in my coming to a conclusion, but I will not be relying on you to heal anything in the near future.