Picking

Although my mood has been pretty good lately, I’ve been struggling with picking at my face. This is a problem I’ve had from time to time and it sneaks up on me and gets away from me. It’s really a bad cycle because having little sores and scabs on your face (gross, I know) contributes to feelings of negative self-worth, which of course makes you want to pick on yourself more. I’m really trying to cut this cycle by slathering a lot of ointment (it’s mostly my chin) and letting these sore spots heal while they are in the crusty scabby phase (TMI) so I can get rid of them. I have about four or five of them, I think.

Why do I fall into this cycle where I end up picking on myself, literally? I can’t stand to watch other people do this, and I’ll tell Max to stop picking at his nails, or cringe. The last week has been very busy. My Dad is here, and I’m helping with the move, but this started before that. I did have a “big case” at work, and I was feeling impatient and maybe a little angry waiting for all the pieces to fall into place with all the major “stakeholders” as we like to say. But nothing really intensely aggravating.

I did spend more time than usual crying this week. I had a lot of memories of Sarah. Not new memories, just thoughts and bits and pieces of her flitting across my mind. There was an article in the news about “near death” experiences and it talked about the universality of the dying person seeing a being of compassion and light, being drawn to it, feeling a sense of well-being. I really hope Sarah’s dying experience was positive and beautiful like that and not frightening for her.

Sarah had a friend, Hannah, from ballet and some other activities, who was similar to her in many ways, a little bit older, very sunny personality too. Hannah’s mother posted on Facebook the other day that she was able to leave Hannah alone in the house for a few minutes for the first time while she walked the dog, and it was a big milestone for them. I congratulated them and so did everyone else. It makes me sad that Sarah will never reach that milestone, or any other new milestones, anymore. But she did reach the milestone of crossing over to the other side without me. What a big girl.