The First Dent is the Deepest

I recall a word of wisdom from a legendary plumber in these parts when we were installing the sink in the drop-in center that I helped build about 4 years ago. After it was installed and the plumbing was hooked up I went over and tried out the taps. Yep, water was running, draining, doing everything a sink was to do. Then I noticed a healthy scratch in the brand new kitchen sink. "Wow, this sucks", I said out loud. I was pretty sure that the sink was damaged even before it was installed but now that it was in I wasn't about to take it out and return it. "Ah, it's no big deal," the plumber said. "It's like the first dent on your new truck. It hurts so bad at first, but then you don't even notice it after a while because the scratches and dents seem to come fast after that one." Now here's the money line: "You really want to avoid that first dent."

Recently Olivia has been experiencing a healthy dose of "girl politics" as they seem to be. Grade one. Geez they start early. We get a little bit of what's going on and, in many ways, it's just kids being kids and most of it is harmless. Unfortunately kids being kids means they're often emulating adults in their life which is likely a completely different post. Adults can be so
counter-productive to the health of children at times.

"You really want to avoid that first dent." What kills me as a Dad is that I don't have a clue when that first dent is going to made to my kids. It certainly isn't predictable and what leaves a mark for one person won't even leave a scratch on another. There's a distinct possibility that it's happened already. I just hope and pray that I wasn't the offending party without knowing it. And perhaps that's the worst part: you just never know even after the damage has been done. A sharp remark here, a poor thought out comment there and suddenly you're looking at the sink thinking, "now how did that get there?"

But we all get that first dent that leaves a historic mark on our souls. Looking back, maybe you can spot it and testify to the moment where the rest of the scratches and bruises started piling on. And if it was only the one, well, maybe we could heal up from it. But there are always more and more and they seem to somewhat get close to that original one, or at least that's how we tend to see it. Often depth and width of that first mark dictates much of how we perceive hurts in our lives.

I'll never forget a young girl that was a camper at a kid's camp that I worked at when I was 17. She was 15 and always, and I mean always, wore her sunglasses; inside, outside, sunny, cloudy, daytime or night it really didn't matter. At first blush you assumed she was desperately trying to maintain a aura of cool but after more conversation the true story came out. When she was little she had an uncle that consistently told her that her eyes didn't match the rest of her face. Eventually the dent started to hold water and she developed a rather intelligent way to compensate. In reality (or at least my reality and others at camp) she was a beautiful young girl with lovely eyes.

To try to put some lipstick and rouge on this pig, the good news is that the dents don't have to be a life-dictating force. We can always figure them out, which is really, really important especially if you parent small lives since our hammers can leave the biggest marks. Hmmmm, it's either end awkwardly here or keep on rambling. Let's leave it for another post.