Pain

This short piece reads a bit like a chapter in a self-help book, but that wasn't my exact intention. It was supposed to be more along the lines of advice, based on my own knowledge on the subject.

"It's never easy, it's like trying to spin the world the other way.

What can I say?"

I bet you've never compared the difficulty of something to spinning the world the other way. It's not a comparison that is usually thought of. But you're thinking about it now, pondering the sheer impossibility of reversing the planet's orbit. Now imagine the difficulty of that task applied to getting out of bed in the morning, or walking into school every day. There are millions of people that accomplish these things daily with no problem. It is just routine to them, nothing new or special. But there are the few, the broken, that can't accomplish these tasks without pain and suffering.

You see this girl, and she's the kind of person who could change the world on any given day, but she's so haunted by unknown demons that she can barely drag herself through the day. Her soul has been shattered, possibly by lost love, or trauma so deep it has left her as a shell of a person. You see this girl, but you don't know her story, and there's rarely anyone who bothers to figure it out. She spends each and every day consistently breaking, losing herself more and more with each passing moment. She makes all the wrong choices, searching for any escape, no matter how temporary. You don't know this girl, but you've all seen her. She's your quiet classmate that sits in the corner and never talks. She's the woman on the bus that spends the whole trip staring out the window, as if she's trying to pretend she isn't there. She might be your mother, or your sister, the one that seems so happy all the time. She could even be you, yourself. She is in pain.

Pain can be invisible sometimes. It can also be ignored, hidden, and critically damaging. Not everyone in pain broadcasts it, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean you can't feel it. Some degrees of pain can be similar to love. It's not always something tangible, but that's not to say it is anything far from real. I guarantee all of you have experienced some kind of emotional pain in your lives, and pretended to be just fine. It's a natural response for us to keep it to ourselves sometimes. You feel as if you don't want to burden another with your problems. Or maybe you feel as if your own personal pain is no one else's business. But there are consequences to keeping it to yourself. Feelings fester when they are buried. Hiding your pain will not make it disappear. It will only feed it and allow it to grow.

Take another look at the girl in pain. But this time, give her more than a passing glance. Give her a chance to release her pain. She may choose not to, and she may never let it go. But giving her a chance could very well save her life at the end of the road. Just think; what if it were you? You, struggling every single second of every single day with an unspeakable burden tearing apart your insides. Wouldn't you wish for that chance? The chance to unbury your demons and finally let them go? I was given that chance, and I rejected it. I held my invisible pain so deep inside that when I decided to release it, it wouldn't leave. It took multiple people to give me multiple chances before every last ounce of pain was exorcised from my mind and body. Don't wait to take the chance. Don't let your pain grow to an unmeasurable depth before letting it go. If you're the girl in pain, when people look at you with a passing glance, give them a reason to look back.

Author's Note

I apologize if this seems pretentious, as that is not at all the tone I was going for.

Reviews

[MAC]

I also admire the way you wrote this piece. Well done! You have a great trait in letting the words go where they wanted and not forcing the piece to be a certain way. Excellent!

[Cynical_Art]

This is really well written and really makes you think about it. I find it ironic that I like it considering how cynical I am. I personally have the mentality that the world is too big to worry about anyone you don't care about, so if this was a debate we'd stand on opposite ends. But as a reader and writer I admire how it's written and it definitely inspires the creation of certain types of characters. Keep up the writing, you have a lot of potential

[Jenna Capilla]

I appreciate your opinion, and thank you. I find it ironic that I wrote this, actually, because I share your mentality on the world. Strange, isn't it?

[Cynical_Art]

haha, well I guess as writers we can embody any personality and state of mind that we want. You definitely had me fooled. That just shows how much potential you have as a writer though. I know a lot of writers that can't separate their bias from their writing and it becomes very preachy.