Today I am in pain. I was in pain yesterday – and the day before – and the day before that... Multiple days of pain tend to change your perspective. At one instant, I am angry, venomous, biting, acid, a rabid dog…and still in my pain, perhaps even in greater pain, I am moments later a doe – peaceful, gentle quiet, cautious, yet my words are soft and warm as mother’s milk. Prolonged pain is strange.
I found myself walking, struggling with each step and thinking about how what had become important to me in that very moment had changed – just getting to the door…just getting to my desk…just breathing for those first n# emails…just not getting sick as the early morning odors of food wafted into my cubicle.
Pain is at once exhausting and refreshing – the exhaustion is obvious, but the refreshment comes in refreshment of perspective. Pain, especially intense pain, forces you to stop. Just stop. There is no choice. From there you must recollect, you must refresh, you must reload and start anew. Pain startles and shifts and forces you to pay attention to it and nothing else. But if you are forced to pay attention to something else, if you want to pay attention to something else, the struggle and the reach to do so makes the exchange so much more precious – a child’s smile, a shared confidence, holding your loved one’s hand…
This pain is forcing me to think – is what I am doing THIS MOMENT really important? Isn’t this worry, well, ridiculous in the grand scheme of things? What am I doing, really? I am thankful for this pain because I didn’t really need this THING or that THING and I don’t care about that celebrity’s pregnant beach photos…NO! I am thankful for being reminded of THIS moment and why it is important, despite whatever pain my body is in as the universe shifts around me.
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