Look again

On Pain & Suffering

I don't like the words pain & suffering.

They sound too harsh, too deep and too dramatic. I hate feeling pain and I hate the suffering that comes with pain. These feelings are usually felt with a deep sense of loss, and I hate losing things that mean something to me.

I lost a few friends & family members to death. At age 11, I lost a close friend who 'accidentally' killed himself while playing with his younger brother. It involved a scarf and a door knob. Everyone tried to keep it a secret from me as I was only a few weeks away from moving far, far away. My mom suddenly told me I didn't have to go to school anymore. I told her I didn't get to say good-bye to my friends yet.

I knew immediately something was wrong because my mom never let me skip school unless I had a fever but I played along as if I didn't know or hear anything.

Until this day, I never got to say good-bye to my friends.

Pain & suffering continued throughout teenage years into adulthood. The worst kind of pain I would soon realize, comes not from losing people to death but from losing things & people to currents of life---like my childhood innocence, an old lover--or loss of a friend & trust built upon years of memories now turned to broken promises.

It was such loss of connections that seemed most painful & tragic. I later discovered in adulthood that such losses were considered to be normal, a natural course of life.

Indeed, pain & suffering are inevitable for a deep understanding and deeper heart. Depth of pain teaches us the depth of our soul and depth of suffering teaches us the depth of life.

I guess pain & suffering taught me something; I'm now 'intelligent' enough to know this. Yet one fact remains.

I don't like pain & suffering. I especially hate watching a loved one endure such a loss. I hate this. I wish I can curse it in the face and make it go away.

Go away.

An attitude of gratitude

I realized my attitude of gratitude has been on the decline lately, so coming across this inspirational quote by Milton is probably one of life's little epiphanies.

I'm currently on a strange path, a path I never envisioned I'd be walking in. It's a little scary, a little exciting, and a little lonely all at the same time but at the end of my night I know I'm blessed for this newfound opportunity. At times I yearn for a companion, someone who shares my intimate details down to the most trivial anxieties but I know this is a journey meant to be travelled alone most of the time.

We come into this thing called life alone..and just like that, we must leave alone. An attitude of gratitude helps us to count our blessings that exist in the form of family, friends, lovers & children but at the end of it all, we must first and foremost be kind to ourselves and nurture our individual journeys.

Excited for tomorrow's encounters, epiphanies, experiences & teachings. Tomorrow is another day, a day that I will strive to live out better than today.

What If You Wake Up One Day and You're Not Angry Anymore?

I've been waking up these days feeling much more inspired and motivated. As I recall, it was around this time of the year two years ago when I was suffering from disappointment & heartache. Everyday felt like struggle and I was trapped in these intense feelings of anger, hurt & betrayal.

I knew better, of course. I knew I need to stay positive, let go and move on but when one is in crisis, these things are much easier said than done. Often people are stuck in this negativity, and without even realizing it, move on in denial rather than resolution.

Humans are highly adaptable beings- and over time, we've mastered the process of denial, repression, avoidance & pretense. It's often much easier to move on without dealing with all the ugly feelings and covering them up with fake smiles. I don't blame anyone for this, as we have jobs to return to in the morning, bills to pay and responsibilities to uphold.

I too, tried this...without success- and perhaps it was this repeated failure that brought me to the lowest point in my darkest state.

Today I look back and am grateful that my threshold for avoidance, denial & repression is fairly low.  Because of my heightened awareness of my own struggles and fears, I was able to face my problems head on and learn one important lesson- perhaps the most important lesson of my lifetime.

That there are things, many things in this world that I cannot do on my own.

One was forgiveness. It didn't come easily and I was trapped in anger for too long. At times I find myself going back to that dark place of loneliness & betrayal, that place where I feel completely and utterly alone and misunderstood.

What I needed was God and time. I needed to pray, seek and wait patiently. I waited..and waited. I wrote and waited. I read and waited. I waited and waited...

And one day, I woke up and realized

I wasn't angry anymore.