Healing And No Ammunition

One thing I've learned in life is that you can't stop a bullet without something getting destroyed.

I'm talking about emotional hurt, the kind of things that are symptomatic, those moments that prove beyond doubt that human beings are flawed in how they relate. When someone takes something you value and treats it with contempt or apathy, the pain is like a bullet, a small thing, that with the speed of a moment penetrates and damages. Words, too are tools, for destruction or for building. Sometimes what is left unsaid is a weapon, too.

Some of the smallest moments become that bullet. You can tell someone outside the bubble about that moment that wounded you, and they may laugh at you and tell you it's only a small thing. And that it is. Bullets don't crush you, they riddle you with holes that drain life. In some relationships the wounds heal and the scar disappears, and in some one wound lays open for a long time, and in others you lie bleeding for what seems like years, and sometimes it is: decades....

You have the choice to know and be known. If you never let anyone past the wall, the medic won't get in either. Somebody out there has the power to fix you, or at least to try. All hands can be healing hands or weapons, and words can heal or hurt. We have choices. And the biggest choice is not to be the violent one who causes the pain. We fail so often at such a simple thing, but it's a choice we have to keep making over and over again: to be one who brings healing and not ammunition.

It's your choice. The only way to stop a bullet without sustaining damage is leaving it in the box. You can't stop someone else's bullets, but at least you can stop your own.

[via You saved my life from a colorless one]