Healing Slowly—and Then All at Once

By Amanda Castro-Crist

The last thing I can remember before the cast came off several weeks later is running across the cushions of our brown-and-orange couch. It’s weird how the time between the two points – broken and healed – is a blank.

I can list a million details about the house we lived in. There were three wood-paneled rooms, one for my parents, one for me and one for my little brother – a perfect little family. I can describe the back of that couch and the designs I’d make dragging my fingers and hands along the soft texture, getting lost in the work of it. I’d sit secluded in the small dark space between the couch and the wall, where sounds were muffled and the air felt cooler, lighter, free, painting pictures in the orange fur before wiping the slate clean and starting again.

Amanda, about a year old, with her father.

I loved that couch. It was just springy enough under my feet as I ran and jumped, back and forth, side to side – it was my trampoline, perfect for my 4-year-old acrobatics. As much as I loved bouncing across it, I remember nothing about the moment I went airborne over the side, and I can’t recall how it felt when the bone in my arm broke. I remember nothing of the weeks my arm stayed in the cast, only how weird and yellow and hairy it looked when the doctor finally popped the cast off.

But I remember other details of that night. I remember how irritated I was as my dad pushed me away when I tried to insert myself into the hug my mom was rejecting.

“Go play. We’re busy. Get out of here,” he said. I remember those words perfectly and the way they were slightly slurred. But of my mother’s, no words pop in my head – I can only hear the way they were tight and hot and directed at my dad. I remember going back to the living room and rebelling the easiest way I knew how – by jumping on the couch.

Sometimes, I wonder if the clarity of that night right before the break comes not from that one time, but from every weekend argument they had that happened almost as if on a schedule. My dad would disappear, or sometimes never show up after work, and then reappear, bringing the stench of smoke, drink and, most times, unfamiliar perfume that smelled like someone else’s mom. It was always the same routine, and though it was late and I’d get tired, I remember feeling like I was going to miss something important if I broke the routine.

Instead, I broke my arm. Later, but not much later, their marriage broke, too.

Amanda, about the age of 2, with her cousins.

A routine, it seems, is harder to break than a bone or a relationship, even when the first time you lived it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. I stay up way too late, something I’ve done for nearly as long as I can remember, afraid that I’m going to miss something, anything. I’m stubborn and want to be included in everything, but quickly retreat when rejected, convincing myself that I’m fine on my own and rebelling in a new way – by throwing myself into my work, just to show how high I can jump on my own.

It’s weird how something as tangible as a broken bone can heal and be forgotten, but the invisible hurts we inflict on each other can live with us for a lifetime. We cope with these pains like we would a physical ailment, using work as a brace, hobbies as a crutch, people as bandages, and we hobble through the day. Sometimes, though it doesn’t feel like it, we heal.

You don’t always heal the way you expected, or even the way you thought was right. Most of the time, you won’t even heal completely. But you heal. It happens in the same way a child falls asleep (or as John Green says we fall in love) – slowly, and then all at once. The next day, you wake up and you’re better – a better person, a better partner or, at the very least, just a better version of yourself, and you wonder how it happened so suddenly when it took so long.

Amanda, between the ages of 3 and 4.

I don’t speak to my father anymore. I struggled for a long time before I realized that was my way to heal, to be better. For a long time, I was convinced that healing meant forgiving and forgetting and making an effort to know him. I was inserting myself into his life without realizing that every time he flaked on a phone call, an event or a promise, he was still saying, “Go away. I’m busy. Get out of here.” I guess habits, too, are hard to break.

Sometimes, though, I think habits and routines are okay – at least if they’re the harmless kind that helps you cope or helps you heal.

I have this pillow that is almost the exact same color and texture as the back of our old brown-and-orange couch. Sometimes, when the day has been especially long or crushing, I catch myself zoning out and retreating to a quiet part in my brain where things feel cooler, lighter, free. The fibers yield and I move without thought, creating designs with my hands and fingers, before erasing and starting again.

It soothes me somehow.

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