(click that little triangle thing to hear me read this to you!)
Dear Nadia,
Why does life have to hurt so much?
-Gemma
Dear Gemma,
I’ve typed and deleted so many starting sentences to this answer.
The first one was:
When I was 13, every single thing hurt.
Then I deleted that and wrote this: When My friend Rachel died I would stare into the middle distance for what must have been hours, as if there was something a few hundred feet away that held some kind of fucking answer, but none came.
I struggled with exactly how to begin my reply to your question, not because there are so many betrayals and losses to choose from (a veritable all-you-can-eat buffet of disappointments - sometimes in other people, sometimes in the world but mostly in myself), but because I know life hurts but I do not, in fact, know why.
I’ve yet to come across an explanation for “why does life have to hurt so much” that does not, to my own ear, sound cruel, facile, or delusional. And frankly, Gemma, the more I think about it, the more I would advise you to avoid anyone who tells you they do, for they will surely try and sell you a utopia, a narcotic or a closet organizer. I’ve fallen for all of those at one time or another and can report back that none of them help.
The fact is that life just hurts. No one gets out of here unscathed.
And maybe there is no satisfying “why” to be found no matter how much we grope around for one.
But there is some wisdom available to us, and it has helped me (once I stop being pissed off because “helpful wisdom” is almost never what I want to hear). But here’s some anyhow:
Some hurts are optional. I’m not saying all of them, just some of them. That’s what I have found, anyhow.
Here’s a short list of avoidable hurts from my own life:
The shitty feeling I get when I continue to take things personally that have nothing to do with me.
My corrosive unwillingness to accept that what happened in the past is unchangeable.
My disappointment when someone doesn’t meet an unspoken expectation I have of them.
The betrayal I feel when I allow myself to be hurt by the same person over and over because I won’t accept who they are.
Every single time I compare myself to others.
And here's a big one:
Hangovers. Hangovers are optional suffering.
The other thing I want to say Gemma, and I am leaving this for last because I am scared I won’t say it right, but here goes: If nothing hurt in life, I think we’d all be boring as hell. Seriously. Also I don’t think we’d be very compassionate. I suspect that all art would suck and I know for sure we’d not be as funny.
I’d love to say that maybe all the hard times are behind you but we both know that’s not how this thing works. So I will say this: I hope your experience of being hurt sharpens your awareness of small kindnesses and little mercies, rather than obstructing them. I hope that love, when offered, feels all the more precious and worthy of cherishing because your heart has known it’s opposite.
I’m sorry for whatever ugliness you’ve had to endure, Gemma. But may the ugliness allow the beauty to be seen MORE clearly and not less.
It’s not an answer to why life hurts, just an answer to how we get through it without the hurt winning.
In it with you.
Love, Nadia
Related posts:
Dear Nadia, Why do you believe?
Dear Nadia, Why, after your own journey, do you still find yourself believing in a personal God and in the resurrection of Jesus? I’d like to believe these things, but I struggle to find them intellectually tenable. Thanks!
On reading this I began to consider that pain has no unique signature, but is more like a spectrum much like that of visible light. And like the spectrum of visible light, is only a part of the whole: most of pain is invisible. Believe it or not, we need pain to be alive. There is no pain-free existance. Pain is one if the consequences of living - and of loving. The cross, that ultimate symbol of ultimate pain, is also the symbol of ultimate love. We cannot know until we are there, if death frees us from pain, but I prefer to endure? no, accept? no, embrace pain, because it is a part, but only a small part, of life. Grace is always with us, even in the darkest hours.
Citizen of Dark Times
by Kim Stafford
Agenda in a time of fear: Be not afraid.
When things go wrong, do right.
Set out by the half-light of the seeker,
for the well-lit problem begins to heal.
Learn tropism toward the difficult.
We have not arrived to explain, but to sing.
Young idealism ripens into an ethical life.
Prune back regret to let faith grow.
When you hit rock bottom, dig farther down.
Grief is the seed of singing, shame the seed of song.
Keep seeing what you are not saying.
Plunder your reticence.
Songbird guards a twig, its only weapon a song.