Peace, Love, & Pearls

Fixing the World, One Analogy at a Time

by caro

It did not take either of us long to realize that we are stellar analogy makers, and can typically brighten up any rainy day with a well structured analogy to help put it all into perspective. This all started the summer between sophomore and junior year when my life seemed to come to a screeching halt (in retrospect? Definitely the best thing that could have ever happened to me, but I digress).

The scene: Stairwell of Lola’s luxury ($375 a month, but actually still luxury) apartment. 10:00pm-ish. Lola in her pajamas. Me in the same clothes I’ve had on for two or three days, mainlining Absolut because my boyfriend and I had just broken up (there is still a question of who did the breaking, but I believe I won when I told him not to let the door hit him in his ass on the way out, and he called me a dumb bitch, and I smacked him, in my driveway, with children watching, and told him if he ever talked to me that way again I would tell his mother that he cheated on me with that hussy. Official score: Caro-1,000,000 the ex-0). I never thought that life would go on, that anyone else would ever love me again, I would never find anyone else in this world, and that the pain would never end.

Enter the first of many analogies that would begin to solve life’s problems. That’s when Lola, in her all knowing wisdom, explained to me that a break-up is like a scab. Yes, a scab. First, you have to fall, and bleed and hurt and cry and whine. A lot. And then it scabs over. And sometimes we put Neosporin on these cuts (or, in my case, Absolut with no mixer, no chaser). And the scab starts to heal, over time. Occasionally you may bump into a table, and that might really hurt the scab, or even in bad cases re-open the scab (like when you find out that he proposed to the girl he cheated on you with. Oh wait, if you’re going to lose in the semi-finals, may as well lose to the team that wins the championship…that’s my one and only sports analogy you will ever hear). But ultimately, the scab will heal. And sometimes there will be no reminders of the original fall. And sometimes there will be scars, and occasionally you will glance at the scar and remember the massive fall you took, and the time it took to heal, but you will remember that it did heal, after all. And you will eventually take up the activity that led to the initial fall. Maybe next time you won’t fall, and maybe you will. But with good friends, good family (and good booze!) you will always heal.