The Thin Edge

I talk a lot about a meeting place I go to, where I meet my ancestors, where I breathe into the space between the edge of my skin and the air. That's a physical visualization I use as a tool to literally slip into that space whenever I have need, wherever I am. And it works.

I don't just use it there. Everything has edges, whether diffuse or dense. And there is space between that edge and the next one.

Right now, my legs are covered in skin grafts, from hip to ankle. They are in various stages of healing due to multiple surgeries. They feel like my legs, but they sure as hell don't look like my legs. The shape of them is different. But they are my legs.

It's enough to make me cry, to ride that line of deciding whether or not to give into all the fears around my accident and freak, or accept that I am changed, but I am alive. It's not a hard choice. But I still have help.

There is this patch of skin above my right knee that is healed. It looks like normal skin. It feels like normal skin. But it's new. The sensation of my fingers against it is so crisp it almost hurts. Because it's never been touched before. Not there. Not where it is.

My skin is not my own. And yet it is. And somewhere, in the space between, is the truth. And I find it unsettling.

Still, I choose to fall into the wonder of this healing process, of the experience of feeling touch again, for the first time. I choose joy in the days that lay ahead of me, without coloring that joy in fear or pain. Sure there are still dark days to come, but there are days to come.