May Contain Peanuts

Not too scabby...

Do you remember scraping your knee or elbow or shin or any various body part when you were a kid? The memory is most likely not very clear in your minds, but you know it happened at some point. Now, do you remember the crusty scab that would develop as that wound was healing? I'm sure you do. Acquiring one of these injury shells is a part of being a kid. Yet, these scabs were multi-purposed: they became something to fiddle with when things got boring, something gross to flick at squirmy classmates, or just a visual memento of your great activities. They might have even become a curiosity-fueled snack for the interested naive youth. In any case, scabs were a part of growing up and the healing process that most kids needed after a good day of play, be that capture the flag or smear the queer or anything else that occupied the day.

Now scabs are interesting in their own right, how they develop, etc.; but I realized the other day that A) I rarely accrue them anymore as an adult and B) if one does develop, it is no where near the size or as interesting as I remember. I still play soccer as I continue to accumulate my years, so I will occasionally come home with a skinned knee or a scratched elbow. The healing process still works, but I no longer get to carry around a quarter sized red and black trophy for my tribulations. Instead, I get some general reddening and maybe a little bit of crusty healing goodness. Perhaps this is where a further education in human anatomy and medicine might come in handy, but I think there may be a difference in how my wounds heal now than when they did when I was a young'un. I just have these images of big coin sized scabs and being yelled at by my mom for picking and playing with them. I haven't had one of those in a long long time and I wonder if I will ever see one on me again. I guess the only way to find out is to go try and get one, but self-mutilation was never my thing.

On the other hand, perhaps it is all a matter of perception. When we are young, everything seems bigger and more important. As we mature, we are able to grasp the size and scale of the world a bit more easily and those things that seemed huge as a kid are now not quite as significant. Perhaps the little 'scablets' I notice now are those same human mini-shields I came across as a kid.

In either case, it makes me realize that yes, I am old. The aging process doesn't stop, but luckily either does the healing process. Maybe I am just too busy in my current state to pause and appreciate the things I would have heartily focused on as a youth, and I could re-acquire these multicolored souvenirs if I actually wanted to. Nonetheless, gone are the carefree days of playing outside for hours on end and the eventual cleaning and healing from said activities. Instead, we get to focus on BMIs, cholesterol levels and how well our liver can recover from last night. As odd as it sounds, I miss those scabs. As unattractive as the word and its connotations are, there is something about these skin shells that make me reminisce about that great time that was our youth and will always bring back memories of many defining moments of that ever constant growing process.


Note: It was a conscious decision not to include any images in this post. We all know what scabs look like and some readers may not share my comfort in discussing the topic.