this is bullshit

Pain. There’s always going to be a point to it.

Maybe not something quite as shining like a life-lesson or something stupid like a mission from God, just always something to show.

My friend elected for a voluntary, ‘fix you’ kind of surgery for her slipping rib syndrome. Her newest pain was planned, a surgery scheduled across a dozen calendars with a precise purpose that she sought after, signed on the dotted line for, the purpose of which to get out of pain, forever. Maybe I was jealous that she had the resources to set aside a couple years to devote to wellness, but I was on fire with aggravation about this whole damn thing. I had flown with her to take care of her for the ten days after surgery, and help her fly back.

I sat back in our hotel room on the other side of the country with her, burning with furious curiosity about why she also wasn’t meeting this new challenge with desire to do the work and show up for this moment. Wouldn’t this promise and potential make her current pain worth it? Purposeful? Why wouldn’t she be accountable to it and stand in its shadow, with reverence, with some level of thanks?

Or, were she not ready for any level of gratitude yet, why not be tougher. Stare it down, don’t bend, don’t give. Assert dominance, be eager to get strong, assume victory regardless; be angry about it and heal the best one can with the energy supplied by spite.

I don’t understand the quiet whimper she lets out instead. Being small, being a victim. That’s a mentality that you don’t shake easily once it takes hold.

I get the want to be small, it’s so much easier than being accountable and a grown up. How often as adults can we just sit around all day long, high as fuck, quietly asking for snacks and blankets all day, consequence-free? That would be awesome! So much better than the messy reality that you can’t stop. That you’re going to die, that shit will hurt, and it’s super possible that if it hurts even sometimes now, it’ll continue to hurt until your dying day. There’s no magic pill, no perfect surgery, no trap door or cheat code to avoid pain.

It’s just, pain. Sometimes ‘The Point’ is to sit down and take a minute to rest, sometimes “The Point” is to stretch or change your form to prevent further damage, sometimes “The Point” is that you’ve been doing the same thing too long and if you have half a brain, you know what where and how that pain started, or at the very least how to manage it to continue what you want to do.

For some unlucky people, “The Point” is that you’re going to have to learn to continue living with something always trying to drag you down, and be okay with it. There’s nothing else for you: some days will be good, some days will be bad, but it’s up to you how to navigate based on understanding those fundamental facts. You better get comfortable enough with the idea that with each new day or new project, you get to also build yourself anew with Ibuprofen and a smack across the face in the mirror each day (or maybe that last part’s just me.)

It sucks to be right, it sucks to live it, it sucks to understand it more than most.

It sucks, completely and 100%. Sorry dude.

But I’m right.

I almost never feel good. I think in orgasm things line up, maybe alone in a sensory deprivation tank with the lights out. In those instances I feel pretty darn good. You know how I feel typically? Thanks to a head-on collision and a bunch of years working in a kitchen, shitty. I can feel and hear my vertebrae grinding from the inside of my ears every time I turn my head, my fingers go numb, upper back tightening to spasm, my hips pop out of position and now my right knee is starting to just randomly be painful while I’m walking, just to list a few.

It takes understanding all those truths to ultimately continue talking to this friend and personally survive each and every damn day. I can complain, sure. I can keep knocking on doors and spending money for all kinds of weird shit that (so far) $100k hasn’t fixed. We aren’t built for such complex levels of perfect and pain-free reassembly. Shit’s gonna hurt. I’m not like, ‘partying with banners in the air’ cool with it, more maturely cool with it with the same humdrum indifference I have for doing dishes or forcing myself to put laundry away within an acceptable amount of time that it dried. Sometimes, I’ll feel like garbage. But, it’s okay. I accept that.

And, instead of whining and alienating myself, I’m just taking it like the prom-goer I once was. 

If it doesn’t fit, force it!