pain won't kill you

i’ve learned the worst thing about pain is we don’t usually die from it. and i know that sounds dramatic but i think we’ve all felt or experienced a pain that felt almost terminal.

the loss of someone, the betrayal of someone, the version of yourself that existed before something happened, a pain that makes you stare at your ceiling at 2 a.m. wondering how something invisible can hurt so much. the kind of pain that sits in your chest and never goes away to convince you that life as you knew it is over. and yet the next morning comes anyways. your alarm still goes off, you rent is still due, the dog still needs to be walked, your friends still text, life still goes on. and there you are stuck in a moment of pain.

that’s the thing nobody ever tells you about pain. the worst part about it is we usually don’t die from it, even though we wish sometimes. and not because we want death, because we want relief. because there are certain pains that don’t have remedies. there’s no prescription for missing someone, no surgery for grief, no cast for disappointment…..some wounds heal without ever fully disappearing. they just become quieter roommates, and for a very long time it feels very unfair.

because if pain isn’t going to kill us then what exactly are we supposed to do with it? suffer, I guess.

thats what most of us learn. to carry it, or protect it, feel it, sit in it, to tell the story over and over until the wound becomes the most interesting thing about us. and i don’t say the judgmentally, i just think that’s what happens when something hurts long enough. eventually we stop introducing ourselves as who we are and start introducing ourselves as what happened to us. the heartbreak, betrayal, abandonment, grief, disappointment, etc.

and while pain deserves acknowledgment, i dont think it was ever meant to become our identity.

you aren’t only the thing that happened to you. but pain has a funny way of convincing us otherwise. it also has a funny way of changing how we move through the world. someone lies to us and suddenly trusting people feels irresponsible. someone breaks our heart and suddenly depending on anyone feels naive. but pain rarely stays where it happened, it always spreads. thats why someone can hurt you years ago and people you’ve never met are still paying the price of it.

pain doest just hurt us, it makes us very cautious. and guarded and suspicious and sometimes it disguises that fear as “wisdom”.

i think that’s why so many of us confuse isolation with healing. we convince ourselves that we’re protecting our peace, and sometimes we are, but sometimes we’re just protecting our fear. there’s a difference between solitude and withdrawal, one helps you find yourself and the other helps you avoid being found.

don’t get me wrong, i’m aware how tempting it is to withdraw and how distance is safety. that if nobody gets close enough, nobody can hurt you. it feels like touching a hot stove twice.

but i don’t think pain was ever meant to teach us how to stop loving. i think it was meant to teach us how to love better, more honestly, and intentionally, with better boundaries, with more discernment, and still with our hearts open. because pain can make us mistake survival for living, and they’re not the same thing. getting through the day is not the same thing as experiencing it, being alive is not the same thing as participating in life.

but survival has never been the highest expression of being human. its connection. its love. it’s trying again.

one of the saddest things pain steals from us is our ability to imagine a future. when we’re hurting, tomorrow feels so far away, feels almost impossible. not because it is but because pain is a terrible narrator. it speaks in absolute and tells us this feeling will last forever. that we’ll never recover, never love again, never trust again, never feel joy again. and although every single time its usually wrong but pain continues to reminds us this is the end and you cant take no more. but if you lived long enough, you’ve already survived things you once thought would destroy you.

there was a version of you that couldn’t imagine making it through, and yet here you are. reading this. breathing. continuing. becoming.

so maybe the goal isn’t to eliminate pain. maybe the goal is to stop worshipping it. because the world doesn’t need more martyrs. it has enough people slowly dying from their pain already. what it needs are people willing to live in spite of it. it needs lovers. people willing to keep participating and keep showing up. people willing to keep being kind even after learning how cruel people can be. people willing to keep trusting after being lied to. people willing to keep reaching for others even when the very thing that hurt them came through another human being.

the world has enough people proving how much they’ve suffered. what we’re short on are people willing to remain soft after life has given them every reason not to.

people willing to create things. build things. share things. say i love you. make art. raise children. hold hands. call their friends. send the text. buy the flowers. start over. and try again.

because one of the realest parts of being human is realizing everyone is carrying something. we all have suffered. the cashier. the stranger walking past you. your best friend. your mother. the person who broke your heart. everyone here is trying to survive something. everyone is grieving something. everyone is learning how to live with something. and maybe remembering that doesn’t make pain disappear. but it does make it feel less lonely.

which is important because i don’t think we were ever meant to carry pain by ourselves. for all our talk about independence and self-sufficiency, almost every meaningful healing experience involves another person. a friend. a sibling. a therapist. a partner. a stranger. a writer. someone who reminds us that pain may be personal, but suffering doesn’t have to be solitary.

because pain really won’t kill us. but if we’re not careful, our fear of experiencing it again might.

and maybe healing isn’t about getting rid of pain. maybe healing is deciding that pain will not be the most important thing that ever happens to us. maybe healing is refusing to hand it the pen. refusing to let it write the rest of the story.

maybe healing is calling a friend.

falling in love.

making art.

taking the trip.

laughing too hard.

buying the flowers.

writing the book.

telling the truth.

being seen.

seeing others.

maybe healing is every small act that reminds us we are still participants in life and not merely witnesses to our own suffering. because I think we conquer the slow death of pain the same way we conquer most things. never all at once, or extravagant, or perfect, or a big epiphany, but by giving life full try anyways.

I made a little Buy Me a Coffee corner for anyone who has ever read my work and thought, “I want to support this somehow.”

just a small way to say thank you and help me keep creating. no pressure, no expectations. my writing stays free, as always. I just wanted to create a tiny door for anyone who feels like saying, “hey, I appreciate what you’re sharing” and leave a little something behind

buy me a coffee