Perceptions of Pain

I entered Guatemala filled with many illusions. That I had an iron stomach. That I had a boyfriend. That I was cut out for Anthropology. That my past experiences had prepared me well for what I was about to face. That my self-initiative would never run out. That I had some kind of direction to head when I returned.

One by one. Each illusion faded.

Not all of them in my 10-week sojourn to the south. But faded they have, and new illusions have taken their place. That I am a weak person. That I am simply not attractive to non-demented straight males. That I'm not really cut out to excel at anything. That my past has very little bearing on my present or future. That lethargy is my way of life. That I am drifting without a purpose.

Personally, I preferred the first set of illusions. So much more pleasant than the latter.

The paradigm shift has brought a lot of pain, the nature of which I have pondered and explored and savored for knowledge's sake. At first, I let it wash over me. "This is what heartbreak feels like." "This is disappointment." "This is failure - now I know what it's like." At last, after watching from the sidelines the majority of my life, I was in the ring of fire. I was experiencing what I had oft observed but only superficially understood. I embraced it. Compassion, I determined, would surely be the outcome; and compassion is Good. "Just savor it while you can," I told myself, "It will fade with time, and before you know it, all you will have is the memories you document."

And while I may have been right in the long run, I was rather naive about the length of the fading process. And about how sticky and gooey the pain would be. I thought of it more as a ball, impacting me at high velocity, leaving its dent, then bouncing away. Like a baseball. Instead, it's been more like a baseball covered in hot tar. The dent is there. But I have to scrape off the cooling tar. Scrape the bruised area around the dent. Leave it raw and suprisingly vulnerable. I find bits of pain-tar stuck to everything I touch.

Pain is no longer a novelty. I want to learn what truths it teaches and move on. Sometimes I think I have, and then an unseen strand of tar snaps me back toward the dent. Ouch! Instead of wonderment, I now view the pain with annoyance, impatience. Its intensity is only an echo of what it was at the onset, but the frequent unwanted smudgy reminders still burn from time to time, popping up in the most unlikely places.

I look forward the fading of Illusion Set #2 and pray that I will be filled with the perspective of Truth - of myself and life around me as it really, truly is. Not these illusions of extremity. Tainted neither with jadedness nor naivete.

This is going to take a lot of work.