Thanks for the all the thoughtful comments on the pain blog. I love when that happens on this blog. Amber asked a couple questions. She asked about self-inflicted pain which strains my brain to consider at the moment but she also asked about alchemizing pain which I think is my forte. But I wouldn’t know how to lecture. All I can do is tell a story.

This week, and this weekend…well my pain is frequently very fine. It’s extreme but exquisite. It’s artful even, the circumstances that set up in my life on a routine basis. I just have to marvel.

Er… I have a constant “baseline” pain in my life that is set to a very high level. This is because my daughter is very ill. She suffers tremendously and since I am her mother, I suffer in tandem. And I can (and do) use various techniques, like detachment to cope whenever I can, but fact is the situation exists and it what it is.

So I live in this world with all the parents who do not have a sick child and I feel that every day. I am isolated with my child. I am outsider, and this creates pain that is very complex. The pain is deep and wide and high and low…it’s inside and out and all around and it’s hard for people to understand. They can’t internalize my experience, I mean. And her problem has proven very hard to treat (more pain) and her prognosis cloudy at best (more pain). And all this impacts my son in ways that are profound, creating more pain…and that right there, describes my baseline pain.

So what do you think? Think that’s enough for one mother? Well, it’s not.

See, I play cards. Or at least I used to. And I don’t have just one card. I have at least a hand…and more like a whole deck of cards. And many of them are volatile! So I’m going along on a Monday or a Tuesday and wham! The weather changes and it starts pouring rain.

For example, this weekend one of my oldest friends was suffering tremendously. He was suffering to a degree only a Scorpio moon can appreciate. And I happened to find out about it.

I called him for a chat, but no. I found him in this horrific state. He stayed on the phone for five minutes, as long as he could bear, and let me know his circumstance and then *click.

I was walking at the time and what could I do? I kept walking. But now I had to think about my friend. About his life, and my life alongside his. And how it was ending up (not good). And I have loved him for 20 years, so how do you think that feels? And what am I going to do with these feelings, hmm?

Because I can’t fix the problem. And I can’t deny the impact on me… the pain I feel knowing the pain he is in. So what the fuck?

And of course it’s never this simple if you’re me. It’s always multi-pronged pain. There’s the baseline pain, this new pain and the pain from another issue I was out walking in an attempt to process in the first place! Get it? Pain cubed! ::laughs:: So what am I going to so? I better do something, eh? Obviously.

So I have this blog. And I have the ability to read a chart and the ability to communicate my thoughts to at least some degree, so this is what I do with my pain.

I come home and I open my mailbox. There are people in pain in there and I think,” Oh yeah. I understand this.” And I try to help them the very best I can, along with the other people who read here and know how to hitchhike. And when I do that, some of my pain spins off. And this is what it means, the phrase, “Serve or suffer”. I don’t like to suffer.

And although I am an extreme case…this serve or suffer thing is a major focus for me, everyone can benefit from helping others. Seriously, if you’re feeling like shit…if you are feeling low, there is nothing in the world that will bring you up faster than extending yourself to another human being.