Professor Pain

Those who have suffered an about-to-burst gall bladder will generally attest it was the most painful experience of their lives. (Some — the Democrats — may even express glee that John Ashcroft suffered the same.)

Those who have suffered an about-to-burst gall bladder and a kidney stone will generally attest that the pain of the latter is surpassed only by the former.

I have the latter right now. And, as Rachel will tell you, my pain threshold isn’t exactly legendary to begin with.

Happy Thanksgiving!

At this stage, the pain hits me in the lower back and side. It clutches the bundle of nerves in a white-knuckled fist that, no matter how I twist and turn and stretch and shift, simply won’t relax. It’s too insistent to ignore, too intense to breathe through (although I have, like a Lamaze student huffing inhalants), too persistent to ride out.

Vicodin helps, but slowly. While I await the relief, I find that the only thing to be done is… experience it. The pain pulls me into the moment, and shackles me there. The more I struggle, the tighter the shackles.

The only way to loosen them is to… stop struggling.

And when I stop struggling, I just sort of float there in the moment. The pain’s there, too, but it stops… mattering so much. In fact, the less I think of it as “pain,” the less I think of it at all, the less it matters. It still burns, but burns through. Burns clean.

It still clenches, but I slip through its fingers.

I just breathe in, breathe out, repeat.

And, somehow, I’m free.

And, really, how different is that from the pain of a declined business proposal, a marital spat, of fearing for our financial future, of feeling tiny and insignificant in the universe?

Breathe in, breathe out, repeat.

Go free.