Hez
Help me with this pain and I’ll love you forever.
Is what I said. I didn’t mean it to sound like an ultimatum or anything, and besides, it was already too late for anything else. I was just speaking the truest desire of my heart, “Please help me with this pain. Please let me love you.”
Pain and stupidity make for great stories if the stories are short. I think all stories should be short. I actually think that all stories ARE short, and what makes a tale, or an epic, is the artful, and skillful interweaving of those carefully crafted shorts into a larger whole. It’s obvious when you think about it; it’s written everywhere, plain as day.
But that’s the hard part, paying attention. It’s probably just about as hard as giving ourselves enough credit. I have had days where I was so depressed, so deeply in my pain, that I couldn’t brush my teeth. The only decision I was able to make was to get up and go pee so I wouldn’t piss the bed. After I’d done that a few times, I drank some water from the tap, then brushed my teeth, then had a shower, then went back to bed. And then I slept, I slept in the arms of fucking victory.
Pathetic, right? Yes, that’s the proper word, especially if you trace its meaning from its origins. I’m not doing that today. Read a dictionary.
The point is that a single step, any step away from suffering, is an incredible accomplishment. It’s a great story, so tell another one. Write the next chapter, you’re still suffering too much, don’t let the story end like that, don’t let your worst point be your last point.
You can suffer beautifully, and you should. Your pain is not there to punish you; your pain is there to teach you to be brave, brave enough to not suffer alone.
It’s tough to find people to suffer with without the effect of magnifying the suffering. That’s not a good thing to do, you want to ease the suffering, and rubbing wounds against wounds....it won’t heal you; it won’t heal anybody. I am nearly overwhelmed by the imagery in my head right now, of the perpetuating of illness, of the incubation of disease, of that hot, black, iron plate bolted to the base of my neck for ten fucking years. That’s not what you want. You don’t want ugly suffering. You need to find a healer.
Love only takes one shape, and that is the shape of compassion, the wavering, but unrelenting commitment to healing.
Help me with this pain and I will love you forever.
Please help me with this pain. Please let me love you.
This is just the self talk of healers, and it carries none of the glory of revelation; there are no angels singing, no outside validation, just tears and snot, and ugly crying by yourself until all the chaff has been stripped away, and you are left with what’s important. I love you.
“Help me with this pain and I will love you forever.”, is a statement that asks a lot of someone standing over you as you lie on their treatment table, but she took it well because she knew what I meant. She knew about compassion, and that you need to be healing to find a healer, so when she laid her hands on me, I broke open. I flooded with relief as I released my pain, and cried until we were left with what’s important.
