Security Blankets

It's been a rough few weeks, of course.  Recently, I've been getting very concerned about Drew.  He's headed into second grade, and less than 2 months from turning 8, and we can't get him to stop sucking his thumb.  I'm seriously starting to consider hypnotism for him.

It's been a hard year on him.  He's borne a lot more than your average 7 year old, and mostly with exceptional grace.  He's not a major tantrum-thrower.  But his Woobie is disintegrating in front of his eyes.  Woobie, for the uninitiated, is the blanket that my mother knit for him before he was born, and was named after the blanket that the youngest child of Teri Garr and Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom, that excellent 80s film, totes around.  Lee and I just called it that, and then one day, so did Drew.  So he was named.

Woobie is loved.  If you ask Drew what is Woobie made from, the answer is always, "Yarn and love."  And he is right.  Drew unfortunately is also a fidgeter, and so he sucks his thumb and picks apart the stitches, and poor Woobie is shredded.  Mom has repaired him (yes, Woobie is a boy.  Of course.) multiple times but he is beyond the scope of knitting needles now.  It breaks my heart.

Today I got to see my nose for the first time since the surgery.  There is a jagged criss-cross line running up my nose where the surgeon pulled the skin together to cover where the bad skin was taken from.  I was thinking about it on my way home from the office, and that I lacked the right amount of skin to cover all of my nose, so they had to push and pull and move things to make it cover, just barely, until my skin did it's thing and healed up.

My nose, a new metaphor for the security blanket that won't cover all of you any more.  Because you have grown, or because you have picked it apart, or because of both.

The jagged appearance will fade, leaving only a fine line in it's place. The scar can be hidden.  But it will always be there.  Much like the scars inside me, which are hidden away from easy view much of the time, but they are there, and when I bump against them emotionally, it hurts so much.

I"m getting awfully tired of losing this year.  I am looking for a win.