A message to a younger me

A wound, long opened. Sat out in the sun, festering, slowly growing. It’s a bad itch at first. One that doesn’t go away when you scratch it, but grows. 
Soon, the itch turns to pain, and the wound, festering and oozing, starts a fever. 
You’ve let it get infected. You’ve forgotten the reason the wound opened, hence forgotten the wound. But time reminds you. 
Time in its infinite wisdom, ever allowing the wound to grow, but not too much before reminding you that it must be tended to. 
But you don’t. You let it fester. You feel the fever overcoming you. You let it. You don’t tend the wound. 
But you must…tend the wound. 
You must remember the hurt that doesn’t heal. The ever festering, ever painful wound that occupies your body when the fever takes hold. 
Tend the wound. 
You hide yourself away when the fever starts. You sleep. You convince yourself the pain will subside. 
But it’s infected. It’s festering. It’s open. 
The fever is too much to stand. 
You MUST tend the wound. You must. 
How do you overcome a wound that cuts as deep as this? How do you tend to this festering, oozing, mess? 
You search for answers and the world is filled with them. Some work. Most don’t. 
Lost, pained, and broken…you cry. You want this infection to subside…this pain to leave. And as you cry, as you start to lose faith, the pain begins to throb. 
And with each pulse, the infection grows smaller. The wound begins to shrink. 
The fever breaks, and suddenly you’re covered in a joyous sweat. 
The illness that had plagued you for countless nights…has peacefully subsided. 
You trace the wound with your fingers, vowing to never forget it’s presence. 
But that’s not true. As with all things, time will make you forget. You will go long periods without pain, and you won’t always remember this moment. 
And that…that is ok. Because there will always be moments that that wound, and that pain will make themselves known to you again. And it is ok to let them remind you that they are there. 
But you can’t ignore it. And you must always…tend the wound. 
And as my father taught me, and my mother before him…it is ok to be vulnerable. It is ok to tend to those wounds however you see fit. Because making it through is all that matters. 
You will always be at the mercy of time. And time…in all of its infinite wisdom, will always remind you that life continues, and even though this wound is the one thing that time cannot heal, it won’t always control you. 
So you move on. You live, blissfully ignorant for a bit. The wound, still ever present. 
But that is ok. 
Time will allow you to remember it, and in those moments, when you feel the most vulnerable, remember: the longer it festers…the longer the pain is allowed to grow, the harder it will be to overcome the fever that follows. Tend to the wound. Always.