The Memory of Pain

The wine: I'm out (gasp!) And I'm taking suggestions.
The music: One Paper Kid, by Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson, on Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town

"And all the time that he'd wasted wasted was his once again, it never takes too long to go where you've been...Broken hearts scattered all over the past, old bad memories tryin' to last...

When she steps down, it's like the it's first time, every time. I coach her through it, again, a little frustrated that each time we meet, we cover the same ground. After a few minutes, with my voice in her ear, she starts to loosen up. "You can do this. I've seen you do it. Full weight. Does it hurt when you do that?" With me telling her, coaching her, she walks normally. "No. It doesn't hurt now." "Well, does it hurt when I do this?" By now we are sitting, and I am open up her joint, using my body weight to manipulate her own, giving her space in new ways. "No. It feels okay." We work. She grunts. We work some more, more space, more movement. "You need to remind yourself, each time you stand, each time you walk, to put your full weight on it. You can, and you need to." "I'm afraid," she tells me. "I think I'm afraid it's going to hurt, still." "Does it hurt now?" I ask her. "Noooo..." She looks confused, befuddled. "Well..." I ease into it, rubbing her gently between her shoulder blades. "Maybe you are held back not by your pain, but by the memory of the pain you had. It's okay to let that go now." A little light bulb goes on. She walks away from me without a limp. She is surprised. I am not.

Everyone I work with has, in some way, been beaten up by life. So have I. Car wrecks. Falls. Broken bones. Surgeries that leave scars. Broken hearts that leave what feels like an eight lane freeway running through your chest. Crimes, the real kind. Threats. The real kind, pressed up against a wall with a hand across your mouth. The things that people say "I could never go through that." Suddenly, it happens to you, and you have no choice. You go through it. Because you have to. It's happening to you, right now, and suddenly you know a truth you did not know five minutes ago, back when you were happy, back when Life Was Good and We Were Us and now it's different and you're blind with rage and groping around for the bottle of ouzo that is suddenly your only trusted friend. Or you get the call, the one with Goodbye, and for ten minutes you stand there trying to feel your own lips. Or someone says that thing to you, that painfulhatefuluglythingyou'vealwaysfearedisreallytruething. Those things that change you forever, leave you afraid to breathe, afraid to think, afraid to feel. Afraid to put your weight down.

I've been there. Here's one. Twenty-three years ago in a sweltering ground floor apartment in Pittsburgh I woke up to the sound of screaming and someone pounding on my door. I was so terrified I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe. And I couldn't wake up. When the police detectives came to my door, I knew what had happened. There were two of us in ground floor apartments. She left her window open. I couldn't fall asleep alone for the next fifteen years. It was the memory of that pain that kept me from letting go, and moving on. One night, alone again justbecausethat'showlifeworksoutsometimes, exhausted and in my middle 30's, I finally found the courage to say "Fuck it. Fuck IT. I'm going to sleep. Anyone tries to bother me will get their ass kicked."

I've slept like a baby ever since, and what's more I can fall asleep damn near anywhere at the drop of a hat. I still have the memory, but it's no longer painful. I think it was because I finally decided I was worth more than that. So are you. Plus shouting FUCK at the top of my voice always makes me feel really, really good. I put my foot, and my weight, down. I was no longer going to waste any of my life on the memory of that pain.