9/10/2023

The point was never about getting better at dealing with the pain

I use to think it was about becoming stronger

I believed I was too weak and that's why it was all so heavy

I believed the point was to managing it

But I didn’t need a lesson on how to suffer

I’ve been doing it all my life

A course on “how to live with pain”

Was never of use to me

The point was to learn to experience joy

Such a simple and overlooked word

Three letters so often used in the English language

One included in my own vernacular

I didn’t understand

I couldn’t feel joy

I could hear it and I could speak it

But it never stood the chance of penetrating through the noise

All I could even do was close my eyes and muffle screams

Hope the intensity would pass soon

And it did, in waves. It just always came back

Learning to take peek wasn’t about being stronger

It about giving myself the chance to look for the joy in all the chaos

Grief is an old friend of mine

I didn’t need to look for it

It just always was

With my eyes open I can choose to seek something more

In the heaviness and haze I can see it

I can access it

Joy

“Learn to feel joy”

Yes.