You're not immune to pain. There is nothing in the world that will keep you from being hurt, no plastic bubble to protect you, no matter the amount of joy that resides in you, nothing will keep you from ultimately being hurt or feeling pain in this life. Whether it's the pain of grieving the loss of a loved one, a failed marriage, a friendship gone awry or being perpetually single and feeling so damn alone. If you are a living breathing human being made of flesh, blood and bone, you're going to get hurt. You're welcome.
The process of dealing with hurt and pain is a strange one. I believe we go through stages much like grief. There's the initial shock that makes some of us take a nose dive straight into shutdown mode (me). Some of us go headlong into defensive mode (also me). We may veer off the road and a head-on collision with anger (guess what, me again). We may slam face first into the pavement of uncontrollable tears (yep!). Or my most favorite one ... rebellion (for sure!). You may find other unusual ways to deal with your pain, such as self-injuring (my go-to). You may also go against everything you think you know and tossing that flaming bag of shit out the nearest open fucking window. Personally, I have gone through all of these stages. So many times I have uttered the words - "I don't give a damn" to "I care too damn much." Caring is where the problem lies. When you care too much you get sucked into the emotional side of everything and that is what trips us up! We let our hearts get in the way. Then when someone rips your heart out before your very eyes and completely crushes it in front of you, you've just lost the damn battle. You can consider yourself down for the count and I can assure you that one of the above mentioned emotions will grip you! Pain will manifest itself in some weird ass way. If you're expecting to dodge and weave to avoid pain, good luck with that.
Pain sucks to go through. The searing agony of pain has to run its course through our life. We do however come out alive on the other side for the most part, but never unscathed or marked up with the scars and bruises of past hurts. So what is the purpose of having to wade through the painful shit. I mean really, why???
It's supposed the strengthen us? Make us better equipped to deal with the next round of shit we are going to face? I just don't get it.
What I do get is this.... pain is part of life, like any other emotion or feeling, good or bad. Our lives are riddled with so many things, some good, some bad. You can let yourself experience the pain and learn from it or let it take root. I guess there's supposed to be a balance in there somewhere. That perfect balance depends on you.
(Journal excerpt from October 2018 when life was a bit too real)
#relationships #pain #divorce #singlelife
