this pain

It never entirely goes away, this pain. I mean, it's not the presence it once was. I've always had it, I suppose. Maybe you have too.

I wasn't sure what to do with it for the longest time. I embraced it, stroked it, fed it. Literature and music led the pain and me down the rabbit hole, where I'd brood.

(Brood: what a great word)

I liked it down in that hole, in a way. The fierce independence that comes with saying, "Don't screw with me right now," verbally or nonverbally, is enthralling. I could spin a grey cloud a mile wide. Sometimes people mistakenly thought I was glaring at them. Sometimes it was no mistake.

And it wasn't logical, this pain. I mean, objectively I could look at it, know what triggered it. I could itemize it, write an outline, whatever. But it didn't always keep a schedule, and didn't work in proportion to the stimuli. I can look back at moments that were some of the darkest, and why those very specific moments were that painful I can't explain.

It tries to show up in unexpected places. I can hear it when I'm jogging. Why are you doing this to yourself? it asks. There's no point in beating yourself up like this, is there? You're just going to die at some point anyway.

This pain thrives on a lack of hope.

I have hope. I see it in my kids, in the way my body and mind are responding to new challenges. I think there's a point to my life, to life in general. Believing fervently that there IS a point to it all is either my greatest strength or my greatest weakness.

***

Now that it's no longer got me by the lapels, this pain tries to reach me in other ways. Empathy is admirable, I suppose, but it's a channel, an open conduit as well.

I see this pain in the heartbroken, hear it in their voices as they search for strength and meaning on their path.

I hear it on the phone in the voices of people I love, people I don't see often enough.

I see it dancing merrily between the estranged and the luckless.

It peers out at me from the eyes of people living that life I've seen, that life I've experienced vicariously, but am thankful, when I'm mindful enough to give thanks, that it's not my life.

I can sense it in class, when the professor asks us a question and is dumbfounded to get no answers; he doesn't understand how much breaking the silence would hurt some of his students.

(You want to see this pain? Take a look around a classroom full of psychology students.)

This pain doesn't get to me like it once did, but it hurts to watch it go to work on others.

And I say SCREW YOU, you conjurer of misery, you step-sibling of malice and spite. If I could pry your fingers from our hearts I would. Let me get my own grip on you, bent on evening the score and then some for every tear, every broken heart, every wordless moment of suffering, every handful of pills meant to silence you that awful way.

Let us live in peace. Stop blocking the road to contentment and happiness and love. You are not merciful, but perhaps, as the sun has set and the day comes to an end you will let us slip into forgetful slumber.

***

***

That's a somewhat unfinished rumination I've plinked away at for a while. I'm not getting much creative writing done these days, so I thought I'd post it just to let it breathe a bit.

Note: I am not depressed, especially at this very moment. This is not meant to be cryptic or have some sort of hidden meaning. It is what it is.

Good night, sweet night.