a good kind of hurt

life isn't always what we want it to be. it isn't always pleasant. it isn't always easy. it isn't always fun. and there isn't always a way out. life, unfortunately, as much as we'd like to wish it otherwise, is not without pain.

and that pain isn't always minor. it hurts. sometimes in ways beyond the mere physical. sometimes in ways we can't describe and in ways we can never get over. in ways that leave us fundamentally, completely, profoundly different than what we were before. held together, but not complete. functioning, but not well. living, but not whole. a mirror to the nature of our own mortality.

as sobering as this may be, it does not have to be entirely tragic. there is something we can do to make of it something constructive. we can recognize that pain is something we feel and that hurt is something we experience as creatures of this creation. we can realize that our response to both is something that we choose as minds of an independent design. and we can release ourselves by making the choice that comes as souls of a better truth.

and that comes by knowing this: if we don't feel pain and if we don't hurt, then it means we're not human. or we're dead. or we're both. all of which are problematic.

ironically, in a strange way, this points us to the alternative. pain. hurt. for all that they do to us, for all that they mirror of our mortality, in the end are what we decide them to be.

and that, if we choose, can be this: reminders of what we are. affirmations of life. markers that we are here to see another day...and that we're lucky to know it, because it means we're still around to be what we decide ourselves to be. alive.

and that's a whole lot better than the alternative.