Pain

There is one thing in this life that can undo me. Bring me to my knees, and cause me to become who I am not. Pain. I get migraines. That is my weakness. I am sure we all have something that is our undoing. This is mine.

Sure there are other things that cause me pain...and I endure them, but to be truthful, I don't endure them well. I have seen, and known people who have had cancer, and other diseases that they have suffered through. Some have come out the other end to live another day, others passed on. They call it a beautiful pain. There is nothing beautiful about it. During that interim, I watched as they endured pain with a sort of elegance, though, that I will never have...at least I don't feel like I will.

Of course, you get looks of sympathy, understanding pats and soothing words from those around you. Surely, they have never endured what you are enduring, the moment you face pain. Surely, you, and you alone are enduring and will endure the most wretched and worst of all pains comparatively.

Be it a paper cut, surgery, or some mind numbingly painful disease, we feel as though we feel things deeper, more intensely. But we don't voice those inner demons. By giving them voice we are giving voice to that inner child that only believes that the world centers around them.

Our wiser grown up knows that, yes, others do feel pain more, some much more. But it is at that threshold that we have a face off between the two; grownup and child. It is in the twilight of our pain, the intensity that it is decided who will win out.

The times when our child wins out our pain becomes that much harder to manage. We struggle and fight and rail against it, trying to take it off, our pain. Like uncomfortable clothes, that are too tight, we struggle against the pain, only causing it to constrict more, intensify more.

So we have learned to not let our child win out too often. Our grownup side calms the inner child and we try to relax our way through the pain. What an odd statement. Relax our way through the pain. In a sense we embrace it, breathe through it, tell our muscles not to fight it. And then we just feel. It is all we have left at that point...to feel.

That depth of feeling, though is what tells us that we are still alive. And yes, whether we want to or not, at that moment, we are going to live. At least for a few minutes more. Breathe in, breathe out. Feel.