The Pain in Pain Stays Mainly in the Pain

We hurt.

When someone hurts us, we hurt; when someone hurts someone we love, we hurt; and when we know that we caused hurt to someone else, more often than not, we too feel a deep sense of hurt.
This is part of being a human. It is inescapable, and it is how we learn. It sounds so cliche to say, without bad days we would not be so grateful for the good ones; without loneliness, we would not appreciate love; without pain, we could not identify peace. It feels trite to try to explain this, particularly out loud, to another person, who is battling that darkness. But being cliche, or trite, or even completely Pollyanna-glad-game, does not render a statement false.

Trouble is, when lost in the whirlwind of pain, sometimes it seems that all you can see is all there is. One's senses all heighten - yet all you taste, smell, see, hear, and touch is the misery. But all-encompassing as it may feel, that misery is not the only reality; it is a temporary paralysis, a difficult moment in time, a confinement that may feel like a prison term -- but it is not a life sentence.

So remember, Pandora: when all the hateful and hurtful demons have fled the box, still there, clinging to the bottom... don't overlook the stubborn, clandestine, but ever-eternally-springing light of hope.