Love-Cuts


This is what I’ve observed:  that sometimes, most times the people who cut you are the closest to you, the ones you love, the ones who love you.

  • Sometimes they cut you in anger.
  • Sometimes they cut you in fear.
  • Sometimes they cut you because you’re safe.
  • Sometimes they cut you just because they can.

Whether tiny little paper cuts, gouges or slashes they hurt.  Cuts always hurt until they heal and even when healed they leave the formerly pristine surface changed – scarred.

What do you do when a line has been crossed?  What do you do when someone who loves you and who you love back inflicts a wound?   What do you do when there’s been an accumulation of cuts?

  • In your role as mother – you forgive.
  • In your role as wife – you forgive.
  • In your role as friend – you forgive.

Or not – friendships, marriages, and families have been lost because of cuts, because of conduct unbecoming, because of a breach of contract (written or assumed to be mutually understood).

Forgiven but not forgotten at least by this recipient.  (Who knows what the one who inflicted remembers – they aren’t talking and one doesn’t ask.)

But this time, the vitriol won’t be tamped down or laughed over or mostly forgotten as the days go by and the demands of life go on.  Silly sitcoms, seductive movies,  brilliant books and riveting music – none of the cultural tricks employed previously is working.

This time, the cut has invaded my dream space.  This time, the words, the look, the tone keeps replaying,  redressing itself, waking me up from slumber.  What to do?  What to do?

No doubt, dear reader, you’ve heard this unattributed quote before:

There are five things you cannot recover in life:

1. The Stone…….after it’s thrown

2. The Word……..after it’s said

3. The Occasion….after it’s missed

4. The Time……..after it’s gone

5. A Person……..after they die

And another thing I know, I can neither select nor control the words and actions of other people, including the ones I love and who say that they love me.  I can only control myself.  CONTROL (as Janet Jackson sang the word.).

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About Candelaria Silva

Candelaria Silva-Collins is a marketing, community outreach and programming consultant; writer; and trainer/facilitator who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She has designed and facilitated workshops on a wide variety of topics including communication, facilitation, job search skills, team building, and parenting issues. She currently coordinates the Community Membership Program of the Huntington Theatre Company. Her work as Director of ACT Roxbury was profiled in several publications, including The Creative Communities Builders Handbook. Candelaria’s children’s stories, short stories, essays and reviews have been published in local and national publications and she is an active blogger. Her publications include the booklets, Handling Rejection; Pushing through Shyness: Networking Tips when You’re Shy, Slow to Warm Up or Just don’t Feel you Belong; and Real Questions about Sex & Relationships for Teens: A Discussion Guide for Parents. She has served on the boards of Goddard College, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston Foundation for Architecture, and Discover Roxbury. She is currently Chair, Designators of the Henderson Foundation.

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