The Exit Wounds We Carry (What is an exit wound by the way?)

We often talk about the entry wounds in life — the moments pain comes rushing in. The first heartbreak. The rejection letter. The betrayal you never saw coming. These are easy to name, to point at, to remember.

But what we forget is that pain doesn’t just enter. It leaves, too. And when it does, it leaves behind something just as haunting: exit wounds.

In medicine, an exit wound is jagged, torn, larger than the entry. It’s the proof that something passed through, that it didn’t just pierce you — it ripped its way out. Life is no different.

When someone leaves your world — a lover, a parent, a friend — the wound they leave behind is rarely neat. It doesn’t slip away quietly. It tears. It splinters. It leaves an outline of absence, a scar that whispers: something once lived here, and now it’s gone...

Think about it:

- A relationship ends. The entry wound was the first fight. The exit wound is the silence after years of laughter.

- You lose a job. The entry wound was the email with “We regret to inform you…” The exit wound is the empty morning routine, no reason to rush for coffee.

- A loved one passes away. The entry wound was the news. The exit wound is the birthdays, the anniversaries, the quiet corners of the house where their presence once filled the air.

Exit wounds are brutal because they don’t just mark where pain began — they show where life had to rearrange itself after something was torn away.

And yet, here’s the strange thing about wounds: they heal. Slowly, imperfectly, but they heal. Scar tissue forms. The skin remembers, but it also hardens. Over time, what once felt unbearable becomes part of the story of survival.

Maybe that’s what makes exit wounds both tragic and beautiful. They are proof that you endured. Proof that you were strong enough to keep walking, even after something tore its way through your life.

So the next time you feel broken by loss, remind yourself: the wound that hurts most is also the one that proves you’re still here. Exit wounds don’t just mark where something left you — they mark where you kept going.

And maybe that’s the quiet victory of being human: to carry scars not as signs of weakness, but as maps of every battle we’ve survived.

by Othello 2025

® billymacdeus.com | follow us on FB The Quarantined Tipsters