I think it's interesting the way things that seem so inconsequential at one point in your life sometimes find their way back into the picture years later. Allow me to explain...
When I was in 9th grade, I was quite the studious youngster, as some of you can probably imagine. I made all A's. I followed every request of my teachers regardless of how silly or unnecessary it might have seemed. I studied. I worried if I did badly on a test. I was a model student (By the way, I was the type of student I assumed I would have a classroom full of one day as an educator. Not true.). One night after a basketball game, I went home to begin my homework. It ended up being around 10:30p.m. when I decided that I wanted an apple to eat as I frantically tried to study for my Civics test that was scheduled for the next day. I went downstairs after everyone else in my house had already gone to bed and sliced an apple using an apple cutter. The slices of the apple did not clearly separate from the cutter, so I flipped it over and preceded to tap each of the apple slices out. Unfortunately, I tapped too hard and sliced the edge of my middle finger of my left hand off. And when I say off, I mean off. Not good.
I remember seeing a lot of blood and part of my finger laying on the plate amidst a half sliced apple. I knew the situation was bad and probably needed some sort of medical attention considering the amount of blood that was literally pouring from me. However, being the one in a million 14 year old that I was, the only thought that ran through my head was "don't make too much noise because if my mom walks in here, I will have to go to the emergency room." Mind you, I didn't want to go to the emergency room because I needed to study for my Civics test. What in the world was I thinking? Even I think I was crazy looking back on the situation. I decided to wrap a roll of paper towels around my hand and just ignore my finger issue. I studied for that test and eventually fell asleep with still an entire roll of paper towels on my wound.
The next morning I woke up to a blood soaked stack of paper towels still wrapped around my poor finger. I had to wet them to be able to pull them away from my finger. Beneath the mess of crimson towels was the bone of my middle finger still slowly dripping blood. I remember literally crying from the pain but still making sure not to let on that my finger was as injured as it was, so as not to miss my Civics test...
I don't even remember that stupid test. I don't know what I made on it (I would guess an A). I don't even know what the subject matter is we were covering. But I do remember my apple massacre. I still look down at my hand and have to giggle at the memory of me as a 14 year old. However, I never paid too much attention to the scar until I got engaged. Now every time I sprawl my left hand out in front of some female onlooker I don't look at my ring for long. Instead, I look at that stupid middle finger all curved and uneven. It bothers me. It will be in pictures for the rest of my life. A digital memory of adolescent Katy. It's weird.
It's strange to me that on the same hand there can be so many stories that tell so much about me. There is my discoloration on top of my hand from me rubbing a pencil eraser across it until it burned my skin off in 3rd grade (my long time crush was doing the same thing. Peer pressure, dang it.) There's my swollen knuckle from where I broke my finger playing basketball in the 8th grade. There's my curved pinky finger from popping my fingers for years. And now there's a ring on the one finger on my hand that I have not cut open or jammed or broken or done something to. And now that finger tells a story of the past 5 years of Cody and me. My left hand encompasses years of my life and now will always stand as a symbol of my life with Cody.
When I cut my finger off, I couldn't see far enough ahead of me to know that the emergency room could have reattached my finger to avoid me cringing 9 years later at the sight of my left hand. Although the older I get the more I realize it's the scars you don't take the time to avoid that end up meaning the most to you. Here's to a flawless ring finger amidst the stories of the scars on my hands. Perhaps I spared my ring finger from erasers and apple cutters because I knew there would be a purpose for it eventually.
It's too late to be blogging.
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