The thing with pain

I was watching an excellent video by John Green and it made me stop and think about my pain.

I have chronic pain. These past weeks I did something to my neck, and that resulted in a new pain.

The thing with new pain is that it becomes almost a relief from the regular pain. Ah, somewhere else in my body screams louder, so I don't have to focus on the constant nagging of the pain in my shoulder and knee.

But soon after, the new pain becomes like the old pain, with the caveat that now I have more places in my body screaming at me and dragging me down.

And, because I know my body and mind, a deep sadness settled in my bones again. But that sadness, almost a grief about my pain, is no longer my enemy. It is something I wrap myself in now, it's giving me a reason to care for my body, and within that, the sadness actually fuels creativity.

That is why, even in the depth of the sadness, I still doodled. I still wrote. I still journaled. Because sadness without a way to express itself is more painful than actually feeling the pain in my neck and my arm.