Shards

I was in my closet when I felt a sharp pain in the bottom of my toe. I glanced down, but there was nothing there. I moved on and everything seemed fine. A few minutes later, there it was again -- a sudden, sharp stab of pain. This time I lifted my foot and ran my finger over the offending area. Owww! My finger brushed something, but the sudden return of pain made me pull my hand back before I isolated it. I glanced down again, but still couldn't see anything. I told Carl I must have something like a small splinter in my toe and I headed into a better lit room. I sat down on the floor under the light and looked closely. I STILL couldn't see anything. I called Carl. He couldn't see anything, either. We used a high-power flashlight, moving my toe every direction. Still nothing. He put his finger over it... OWWW! Yes, he felt it, but he couldn't see it. For just a second, with his finger resting lightly on it, I thought I saw a flash of something.... but then it was gone. No, not gone -- it was still there, causing pain when touched (and only when touched)... but there was no visible sign of anything there. Hmmm....

How do you remove something you can't even see?

Carl then went out to get a lit, magnifying visor (imagine a jeweler). We kept the flashlight trained on the spot... and twisted my toe every direction to get just a glimpse of a glare off of what we were now assuming was a tiny sliver of glass. Finally... Finally he saw it and he reached for the tweezers. I have to admit I questioned him. How on earth would tweezers work on something that he could hardly see (and I couldn't see at all!). He said nothing, simply moved into position... slowly squeezed the tweezers shut... and pulled. I felt something... then, very cautiously running my finger over the area, I discovered whatever HAD been there... was gone - no more pain. :) With the visor still on, Carl held the tweezers over the palm of his hand and looked at them. I couldn't believe it, but we STILL couldn't see the offending sliver. It was so tiny we couldn't even see it when removed. But for something so incredibly tiny, it sure made its presence known!

So... the million-dollar question? Where did it come from? Okay, so now I have to admit that last week was not a good week in my kitchen... Wednesday I broke a Corelle bowl. It takes a lot to break one of those, but dropping it on tile does produce quite an impressive shatter. It was Thursday when I dropped a glass cake dome. That, too, shattered quite nicely when it hit the tile... with quite a nice spread pattern. We started the cleanup with the broom and dustpan. Then Carl pulled out the shop vac and went over the kitchen several times with it. We thought we had the mess cleaned up. But somehow, somewhere... one teeny, tiny shard of glass... so tiny we couldn't see it... escaped. And much later... when it worked its way into just the right spot... it hurt!

So.. I have to tell you -- my closet is a long way from the kitchen. From the kitchen you go through the living room, a short hallway of sorts, through my bedroom, all the way across my bathroom and finally into the closet. I have no idea how that tiny irritant ended up in my closet. It was far removed from the original scene. If we hadn't caught, for just a moment, the gleam of the glass shard, we would have never known what was causing the pain. Without the physical evidence I would have never connected my kitchen experience with my later closet experience. So now I wonder....

How often do we work to clean up the messes of our lives... so sure we've got it all under control again... only to much, much later... in a much different place, even... suddenly feel a stab of pain that we have no idea where it came from?

I'll admit that every once in awhile something causes a reaction in me that seems unmatched to the actual circumstances. Sometimes, I'll turn just the right way and something penetrates... a sight, maybe even a scent, a word or thought, sometimes I won't even know what caused it... but something gets a reaction. Could it be a shard from a mess I thought we had cleaned up? And how do you fix something you can't even see? Hmmm...

Thoughts? Leave a comment and share them! :)

-jenn