Scratching

+++ title = “10” date = 2019 +++

“Don’t scratch your itch,” my mom would say when I got a bug bite as a child. “It’ll make it worse. Let the medicine do its work.”

The medicine could be anti-histamine, music, or Advil. But we refuse, don’t we, just to let the medicine do its work. We’d rather scratch because it feels satisfying than sit with our discomfort, keep our hands off of it, and let it evaporate.

Maybe one of the most important lessons I never learned was this: if you don’t scratch your itches, external or spiritual, the medicine will do its work.