The only way I know how to cope with pain is to sever it from my body, like an amputation. To wrench it off and bury it deep in the woods, hoping it won't be found.

I always used to wonder about this, and still do sometimes:
Do most people learn how to live and breathe through this pain? Is that how they can make friends with it, endure in their daily lives a little, still talk to these people they love but must leave?

Or do they not feel it so much?


At any rate, it's something I'll have to learn to do soon. Because pain isn't something you can throw away, even if you want to. It's not something that washes away with tears either.

It's a little gentler, wispier, more elusive than I thought. It's the shadow of good things, lingering in the background. And if I want to keep the good things, I have to keep them both.