So I’ve got a band-aid on my knee. One on my elbow, too, actually. And a third on my hand. But it’s the one on my knee that gets me misty-eyed. I mean really -- I’m over 40 years old, shouldn’t I be past the whole scraping-up-my-knees-and-needing-band-aids business? (Unfortunately, I didn’t get my cuts and scrapes climbing trees or roller-skating, which would’ve been awesome. I just have dog who still doesn’t get the “you can’t chase stuff when you’re on a leash” rule.)

But the thing about my band-aids is that I wouldn’t have bothered with them on my own. I’d been out at the river with a friend, and we were looking at how the ice had frozen into Smurf-like caps on the rocks above the water line, when my idiot dog decided to chase something, spinning me around in a circle and landing my ass on the pavement. It happened so fast the first thing I remember was the swearing. Mine, obviously.

We limped me home, and I was so angry and embarrassed, my inclination was just to sit and fume for a while, but my friend was concerned, wanting to take care of me. I may have been in a tiny bit of shock -- I’d come within inches of cracking my head against the iron railing on the way down. So after I’d refused his offer of hydrogen peroxide (Really? Isn’t that just for kids?), and couldn’t find the Neosporin, I finally acquiesced to his entreaties that I wash the gravel out of the wound and cover it with a band-aid. But most of all, it was his offer of a hug that sent me.

We grew up tough (as tough as a sensitive, emotion-girl like me can manage, anyway). This was Miles City in the ‘80s; I don’t think the drugstore even carried band-aids. Certainly not the hot pink Princess ones I’m currently wearing (which, by the way, stick like you wouldn’t believe). This was “Walk it Off” country. There really weren’t a lot of hugs and band-aids on offer for scraped knees. And I’m sure there’s something to be said for that -- self-sufficiency, and all. 

But there was true healing in that hug, that band-aid, that “it’s okay to show your hurt” my friend offered. I couldn’t take it in, at first. As good as I am at crying, I didn’t want to lose my shit in front of him. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to stop, once I started.

And so now that the crying is over (I did stop, eventually), I’ve spent some time pondering what that was all about. What did he offer that triggered such a deep sadness in me? Seriously, I wasn’t crying over my knee; I am tougher than that. ;) In a way, I think it was that he was able to meet me, emotionally. He was able to stand there with my pain, not knowing where it came from or why, and say “I’ve gotcha. You can let go.” It makes me cry again, just thinking of that. When you spend 40 years, or whatever, trying to be tough, trying to protect that so, so, vulnerable underbelly, you forget that one of the purposes of human interaction is to interact. To relate. To meet one another’s pain or joy fully, from wherever you both are.

It can be hard. Standing with someone you love when they’re in pain, and allowing them to feel it without needing to fix them is a toughness far beyond what they taught in Miles City. Being able to say “I don’t know what this pain is, or why it hurts you so much, but I’ve gotcha. You can let go” brings you face-to-face with your own impotence. But that’s what makes you real. That’s what makes the work of relating to one another worth all the effort. 

So what if, instead of the piles of crap from Amazon this year (or along with, who am I to judge? My tree will certainly be attended by piles of crap from Amazon -- all of it awesome), what if we could offer Ourselves to those we love this Holiday season? Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice -- however you mark the passing of one year and the start of another -- what if you could do so with a commitment to meeting the people you love emotionally, wherever you both are? What if you could meet them with an “I don’t fully understand you, don’t quite get your loneliness or heartache, or whatever you’re going through, but I love you, and I will hold space for you to lose your shit when you need to.” Maybe we can’t fix the people we love, but what if we could show up in our relationships emotionally as all that we are, and trust that there’s actually healing in that?