Pain Is Only Understood In Its Absence

It’s only a few clicks between the cacophony of random noise outside my office and the music filling my ears and surrounding my thoughts. Music whose sole job is to push out a throb that oscillates between a dull “boom” and sharp “bap!” between my shoulder blades.

It doesn’t work.

I turn it up further. I can see my dogs bark, I can even see the concern in their eyes. I don’t care. Without intent, my foot starts to tap and as my head starts to bob, a rapid, deep sting reminds me that my spine now has titanium connecting pieces of vertebrae together millimeters away from my spinal cord. Picking up my fifteen pound cat, the electric stab reminds me of why I was told to not lift anything more than five.

In some way, pain has been with me my entire life. If it was the divorce of my parents at the age of two or the time I wondered what a hot burner on the stove felt like, pain and I have kept a close relationship.

I’ve never understood why pain choose me.

There was a moment several years ago when pain was absent. It was some point between my move from Denver to Boulder. I drove up to the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Behind the building snaked several trails; I chose one at random, climbing it slowly.

At its pinnacle was a cave filled with bats. Important bats, because the cave itself was blocked off. I sighed, and turned to head down. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the sun banging off the red buildings of the university.

The view of the entire Boulder Valley with a clear sight line to the airport south of Denver stopped time for a single moment. Sounds disappeared and I realized that that exact moment I was only tired.

Pain didn’t make it up to the cave.

We only understand pain when its absent.

Pain is a constant test to see if we have the ability to achieve more than we think we can. Walking when you can’t feel your foot. Hard. Watching friends crumble under the weight of a drug addiction. Painful.

Everything else? Unimportant.

For the first time in three weeks, I have been able to sit for longer than about an hour. I walked for twenty minutes on a treadmill. Then slept for three hours. I almost washed the dishes in the sink, until I felt like my head was about to roll off my shoulders like every guy post-coitus in your favorite 80's horror film.

Pain reminds me of the mistakes of the past. I don’t hate pain; I respect it. Each time I start a sentence with “If I just…”, I remind myself of “what I can do…” Each time pain slows me down, I do something else just a little bit faster. Pain has taught me that there is always something worse than failure.

Pain is something I live with every day. But its ok. I get it.

We are friends. We understand each other.