What My Pain Has Taught Me

Life will beat us up. We can try to avoid it, but like the IRS, life will come knocking to collect its dues. When it collects, it usually gives us a black eye. Draws blood. Breaks hearts.

It's happened to me. I'm sure it's happened to you. Better yet, I can guarantee there's more on its way.

Encouraged yet?

I don't know why terrible stuff happens to us. I won't try to go there. But I do know our pain shapes us--for good and for bad. I know that we can grow in astonishing ways from our pain--if we're intentional about it.

The best-case scenario for us is not to avoid pain altogether (because it's impossible); it's to learn as much as we can from every fight to better prepare for the next one, and to leverage our pain to live the fullest, deepest lives possible.

To that end, I thought I'd share the top three lessons that my pain has taught me. They're lessons that have changed the trajectory of my life and continue to shape and influence my decisions. I hope they're useful to you, too.

The first lesson is this:

I can't do it alone.

As I've gone through trials, the single best decision that I've made has been to invite people into my struggles.

My story goes down a much different, much darker path if not for the people who provided me with support. I had friends and family praying for me, sending me texts and emails, dragging me out for coffee or dinner or a hike--all to encourage me, to listen to me, to help carry some of the weight, and even to let me know when I was being an idiot.

The support didn't stop with friends and family. In some of my deepest turmoil, I was juggling work at school, church, and grad school on top of maintaining my relationships, all while floundering in heartbreak. I had tried to keep it all together, stay upright as the wind and waves tossed me around, but at some point it became impossible. I needed help.

I'll never forget the unbelievable understanding and compassion my bosses, professors, and advisers showed me when I opened up to them. The best thing a drowning person can do is ask for someone to toss them a buoy.

I still tear up when I think about all of these people and what they've done for me--they saved me. They walked with me through darkness until I found light.

I might have never found it without them.

The second lesson is a resolution that I forged in the fire fueled by years of feeling like I wasn't enough:

 I won't waste another second of my life trying to convince someone I'm worth being loved.

Somewhere along the way, some of us get it into our heads that we have to work at deserving love. That we're not yet worthy of that prestigious honor, and we have to do just a bit more to get there. Sometimes this is because of a romantic partner; for others, it's a parent, a teacher, a friend, or a boss.

Personally, I've spent far too many years of my life in relationships that were one-sided or, at the very least, significantly unbalanced. I've spent too many nights wondering what was wrong with me and what I could do next to deserve someone's love.

To anyone who relates to that, I would start here: Your worth is not dependent upon your performance or how someone feels about you. You are worth being loved, right now. As you are.

If you're married or in a significant relationship, that means that you're allowed to ask to be loved or express that you're not being loved. Yes, there is a symbiotic, two-way street that should compel you to do your part in loving the other person. But you also have the right to expect to be loved. It's not a "When you start doing x, then I'll start doing y." For either party. 

For those of us who are single, this means that one of our top deal-breakers is a simple one that a stunning amount of people ignore: the other person should be into you. You shouldn't have to convince them that you're worth their love or affection. If they don't get that, they're not ready for you.

Some of you are going to disagree. There a lot of couples that seem to be an exception. One person continued to wear down--I mean, pursue--I mean, be interested in---the other until he/she gave in--I mean, reciprocated. I'd say this: if being in a relationship or specifically a relationship with that person is that important to you, I wouldn't stop you. I hope that the investment of your time and heart that you'll pour into that situation will be worth the gamble.

I know this for me, though--being in a relationship is not my end-all, be-all. It would be nice, but my goal is to live my life to its fullest. With or without someone. I have more important life work to do than to try to chase someone down who may never feel the same way.

By this point in my life, I've learned that I don't want to storm the castle for a girl who needs to be saved. I want a girl who knows what she wants.

The third lesson I've learned from my pain has particularly transformed my life:

My worst decisions are made out of my hurt. My best decisions are made out of my hope.

Most of the bad decisions I've made in the last decade were made from a place of pain. Someone disrespected me, neglected me, or otherwise inflicted pain on me. In response, I said or did something that was a knee-jerk reaction borne of anger, vengeance, or self-preservation. When that happens, I always make the situation worse. Always. A person who makes decisions from their pain is like giving a toddler some finger paint and setting them free in the house. There's bound to be a mess.

In some strange, ironic twist, it took some of the most heart-wrenching situations to eventually teach me how to respond to pain better.

I started to think about what I hoped for instead of reacting out of my hurt. When I framed a situation with hope, it gave me perspective. I began to envision how I wanted to recount this painful situation in six months, or a year, or ten years. I began to make decisions that future me would be proud of. I couldn't control what anyone else did in my life, but I could at least let hope inform what I did.

This approach didn't solve all of my problems. It didn't lead to all of my conflicts ending like a Full House episode--sappy music and apologies and group hugs. It did keep tough situations from being tougher. It kept the shrapnel from painful situations from digging in deeper and breaking off into smaller pieces in our flesh. It put me and involved parties in the best position to allow grace and love and compassion and forgiveness to do what they could.

I've had many opportunities to let my pain dictate my direction, or to let my hope do it. I guarantee that one has been better than the other.

And as the famous line goes, "It has made all the difference."

Feel free to share some of the lessons you've learned from your pain. I'd love to hear from you.

***

Feature photo ©2010 Christian Holmér | Flickr

Why I Have Obnoxious Stickers on My Car

Shortly after I got my back from my road trip this past summer, my car, Old Red, underwent some cosmetic changes. First of all, I washed off the small nation of bugs I had accumulated from the front of the car.

Secondly, I added a butt-load of stickers to the rear window:

I know, I know. It looks pretty obnoxious. Ugly, even. My friend Jen has already expressed her hatred for the asymmetry that's going on. I would agree, and I apologize for assaulting your eyes and your fung shui.

I never thought I'd be a car sticker kind of guy. Here's why I have them displayed so obnoxiously on my car:

It's not for you. It's for me.

I have a goal to get to every national park in the United States. It's a goal that lodged itself in my gut a few years ago, and I've become pretty serious about making it happen.

Those stickers are a visible (even if unattractive) reminder every single morning when I walk out to my car that I have a goal that I'm working toward. When I look in my rearview mirror, those reminders are there. When I get out of my car, those reminders are there. I even see them when I check my rear view mirror. The asymmetry only adds fuel to the fire to start putting more stickers on to even it out. And the stickers don't just remind me that I have a goal; they remind me that I'm making progress. I need that.

Three months ago, I had eight stickers on my car. Now? I have eighteen. That feels pretty good.

I also know that I still have forty parks to go. Every day, because of that window, I'm thinking about how to get my next sticker.

Yeah, Paul, I still think that's pretty stupid.

Okay. That's fine. I understand. But sometimes you have to get weird or obnoxious or a little crazy to make your goals happen.

Your goal is probably not the same as mine. Your strategy to accomplish your goal doesn't need to involve an annoyingly asymmetrical arrangement of stickers on your car window.

But you might need to get weird about it if you really want to see it happen.

Do whatever it takes. Write messages to yourself on the wall. Have friends call/text/email you reminders at certain times of the week. Eat a bowl of ice cream every time you take a step closer. (That one I will not apologize for.)

In any case, I know I can't fit forty-eight stickers on my window. It's physically impossible, I probably (hopefully) will have ditched Old Red by then, I think it would be illegal, and it will definitely be unsafe. At some point, I'll have to find a new way to motivate myself to check the rest of the parks off my list.

You can bet it will be a bit crazy and a bit weird. You've been warned.

#LiveTogether: Go On and Tear Me Apart

This is the second post in a series on relationships called #LiveTogether. You can read the first one here. The series will cover the challenges, the humor, the heartbreak, the hope that comes with choosing to do life with people.

***

For me, the song of the year so far is Coldplay's "A Sky Full of Stars."

I know not everyone is as on board with Coldplay as I am, and that's fine. Regardless, I think it's a great song, and I'm pretty sure I've listened to it at least 150 times. (iTunes, in fact, says that I've listened to it 56 times. But that doesn't count Spotify, or my shower, or all of the places I've walked and breathed in the last few months.)

The song begins with Chris Martin's syncopated piano chords sweeping from a loud hammering to a muted plunking, as if he was shooting back and forth in space, and he sings:

'Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars / I'm gonna give you my heart.

I'm hooked, right away. Then he follows it up with:

Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars / 'Cause you light up the path.

And as the piano drives harder back into our atmosphere, there's a thump, and his vocals soar as he hits me with a line that I can't move past:

I don't care / Go on and tear me apart / I don't care if you do.

There's a part of me, the hopeless romantic, who wants to join in with Chris Martin, launch myself past the pull of gravity, hurtle myself into the kind of reckless love of which he sings.

There's another part of me, the grizzled traveler who has walked what feels like thousands of miles on the road of life, who has learned and re-learned this hard lesson:

The human heart can only be torn to pieces so many times.

There's a limit to how many times one can dive into a relationship with wing-like arms spread wide and chest exposed and slam into the ground because the water is too shallow. Or rush out into the cold of night singing, "Come what may," and be left alone to accumulate snow like an abandoned car.

There's a limit to how many times your heart can expand and regain its shape after being flattened under an onslaught of stampeding hooves.

I wish I could sing the line and mean it. I wish I could be like Augustus Waters and say, "Oh, I wouldn't mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you."

A younger version of me would. And could. And did. I got a thrill out of the challenge. I thought I was made for the throw-caution-to-wind, leap-into-burning-building kind of love that movies glorify. I wanted to champion a story that would gallop into danger on chariots of courage, race into the foul and gaping mouth of the dragon, and emerge from the smoke and ash with my lungs full of fury and my eyes steeled with strength.

I certainly got the fight I asked for.

The first time my heart was broken, it dropped me to the ground. Literally. I gathered myself, got back up, and threw myself back into the fray until I was spit back out. Again and again. Over and over. Like a shirt that's run through the cycle week after week, I lost material and threading until the holes started to show and the seams fell apart.

There's a part of me that refuses to put myself in that situation, to give someone that power ever again. I refuse to say to someone, "Go on and tear me apart; I don't care if you do." Because I've experienced the disorientation of being shredded and discarded like junk mail that no one wanted to read. I know what it is to lose yourself and your worth in the darkness of someone's disregard.

Screw that.

Seriously. No way. Not again. Not ever. That Paul is dead.

***

In my coldest moments, in my deepest retreats into the basement of the fortress I've built around me, amid the echoes of dripping water bouncing off the bare walls, I hear a voice.

It's not an audible voice. I don't hear it with my ears.

It's more like the tiniest, thinnest beam of sunlight that snakes through the dark and dust and finds the back of my neck. I feel its warmth, and the hair on my neck rises. As I keep my back to it, it sways in circular motions on my skin and begins to spell out letters that string into words, and even with my eyes closed and my ears shut, I can't ignore it.

It says, "You were not made for dungeons and darkness."

I know it's right. I feel it pulling at me, tugging at me, urging me back outside my walls. I don't want to be destroyed again, but this--this hiding, this barricading--isn't the way. I stay at a distance because of fear, but fear isn't the rudder I want steering my ship. I want to listen to better voices.

The voice I hear in those moments reminds me of this:

I'm at my best when I'm open and vulnerable. I'm not at my best when I've shut myself in.

There are too many people in my life who need me at my best.

As we move toward anyone, any friend, we place more of ourselves in their hands, more of ourselves at their mercy, more of ourselves at risk to be torn up a little. That's the cost of doing life with other people, doing life together. It's quite different than continuing to knowingly place ourselves in dangerous, harmful, or abusive situations--into the hands of people who have proven they can't be trusted to be kept within arm's length.

All relationships requires risk. All relationships that are worth it demand us to bare ourselves at some point.

I'm re-learning the curves and contours of the route of risk. I'm measuring the depth of the water before I jump. I'm wearing extra layers so I don't freeze in the cold. I'm not quite sure that I'd sing, "Go on and tear me apart," but I'm out of the dungeon. I'm squinting in the daylight. I'm feeling the ground beneath me one step at a time.

This is the way. This is what we were made to do.

***

Feature photo ©2009 Robb North | Flickr

#LiveTogether: Hide and Seek

This post is the first in a series on relationships called #LiveTogether (and if you followed up with "Die Alone," then you have watched Lost and are my best friend) which will cover all kinds of relationships--romantic, platonic, familial. I hope it'll be fun, funny, heart-wrenching, hope-giving, and eye-opening.

***

On our first date, we played Hide and Seek in a Super Walmart.

I was nineteen and didn't have a car. She picked me up in her dad's worn down, small-size Chevy S10 pickup. As soon as I shut the rusting door, her perfume danced around my head and slipped smoothly into my nostrils down past my lungs, spun circles around my nerve endings to the soles of my feet and floated all the way back up to the hair follicles on the top of my head.

She looked at me and smiled. Even in the dim orange tint of my apartment's parking lot lights, she lit up in my mind like a hungry fire and burned an image there--long, feather-like earrings and waterfall bangs framed her face. In the dark, brief gleams of light flashed from the middle of her shadowy eyes, her speck of a nose ring, her unbalanced smile, and the metal loop in her lip.

The air was no warmer than 40 degrees, but all she was wearing to guard herself from the cold was a thin, black blazer. Its sleeves stopped just below her elbows, which made sure I could see the large, turquoise beads shaking and rattling around her wrists. I had stepped through the crusty, outer crust of a country pickup truck and found a rich, elegant, caramel center inside.

It was like happily drowning in a pool of rare, century-old wine.

And then we headed to Walmart.

To play hide and seek. Because that's what kids in a college town do. (To my credit, it wasn't the only place we'd go that night--there would be dinner, there would be music, and there would be a drunk guy mooning us. What a night.)

 As we walked through the wide, toothless mouth of Walmart's automatic double doors, I was ready for what my wiry, circus-like body was born to do--hide in really weird places.

I hid first. I felt good about it--I could set the bar high, leave a good impression. My clearly yet-to-be-developed brain was convinced a girl could be wow'ed by my hiding skills. She had trash talked me earlier, bragging about how awesome she was at this game.

Nonsense, I thought.

I left her, with the smug smile of arrogance on my face, to count to sixty somewhere between the racks of extra-large men's camo gear and the wall of Hanes socks. I jogged down the aisles, snapped my head from side to side, my eyes pinging in every direction, zipping like hummingbirds, looking for the spot.

I don't remember exactly where I hid. It doesn't matter--she found me faster than a mom of four could find the Snack Packs on sale. For years, as I investigated the mystery of how she found me so quickly, she would only say, "I'm that good."

Now came her chance to hide, and mine to redeem myself. Each second I counted, my body temperature seemed to rise. By being found so quickly, I identified with my Korean ancestors' shame when they tarnished the honor of their families. I gathered myself and narrowed my eyes with determination as I rattled off the final seconds before my hunt began.

I marched in swift strides, moving quickly underneath the fluorescent lights and spherical cameras hanging from the ceiling. Toys aisle. Not there. Bikes. Not there. Baby stuff. Not there. Electronics section. Not there.

Of course--the garbage bins! So easy.

I looked behind them, inside them, around them. Not there.

The sweat of pressure began to seep over the lip of my forehead. Oh no. This can't be happening. Everything would have been fine had we simply gone to dinner and started our night there. But no--I just had to agree to begin our night in the land of broken dreams: Walmart. Minutes disguised themselves as hours in my head passed as I poked my head in between shelves and ripped open racks of clothing. Exasperated, panicked, and desperate, I started to backtrack my route through the store. Still nothing.

And then:

“Paul!”

I heard her voice ring out. I spun around. And there she was.

The baby stuff. The baby section where I had already looked--she was crammed on the bottom shelf behind some cribs. That I missed her on my first pass, I’ll never forgive myself. She shimmied out, and I thought her head might be cocked to one side permanently from having held it in that position for the eons of my fruitless search.

“You suck at this,” she said. “I told you I’m the best.”

After that, we left. We ate. We listened to music. We began. We kissed. We fought. We strayed. We came together. We journeyed for a long time. We parted ways.

As I look back on it all, I'm not sure that I ever really found her that night in Walmart. I'm not sure that our game of Hide and Seek ever ended.

For years, I traced and retraced the same steps through those scuffed aisles. I called, "Olly olly oxen free." I sat down on the floor to wait.

I was forever found, but never finding.

***

Feature photo ©2010 Sylvia Sala | Flickr

Let's...

Let's dream for just a minute. Let's clear the fog of routine and cynicism in our heads. Let's throw open the doors and dare to hope.

Let's slow down. Let's take deeper breaths. Let's allow the buildings and trees, minutes and days, smiles and broken hearts that have been blurred streaks of light in our peripheral vision come into focus.

Let's run. Let's pick up our feet and move with urgency because there are people who need our commitment, our dedication, our talent, our words, our care, our love, and not a moment too soon.

Let's explore. Let's get off a random exit and see where it takes us. Let's plunge into the woods at midnight and pray we make it out alive. Let's sit down in a strange restaurant and order strange food from the menu. Let's leap into the unknown and grow as we fall.

Let's stay right here. Let's turn over the couch cushions and see what treasure we've been missing. Let's listen for the hum of the air conditioner, the neighborhood kids dribbling a ball on the street outside, the grinding of the valves in our hearts as they open and close, the slow creaks of pain, the soft chimes of joy.

Let's look back. Let's pick the bones of our mistakes clean of the lessons attached to them. Let's finally hold the kind of funeral for our regrets that lets them burn up into smoke and soot for good. Let's remember the people who have come behind our sputtering car and have given us a push. Let's make our memories buoys that hold us up instead of millstones hung around our necks, dragging us to the floor of the sea.

Let's look forward. Let's dig through all of the dirt, wade through all the muck and mire, break down all of the doors, until we find something worth wanting. Something worthy of our hearts, our hopes, our lives. Let's set it as our North Star, fix our gaze ahead, and move toward it.

Let's sing. Let's belt out the songs we don't want anyone to know we love. Let's twist and shout and shake and rattle and roll and rap and clap. Let's croak all the low notes and screech all the high notes. Let's mouth the words when heartbreak clamps down our vocal cords. Let's whisper the lines that are so heavy with hope, we can't bear to sing them any louder.

Let's try and risk and fail. Let's figure out the difference between wise caution and crippling fear. Let's afford each other the grace for trial and error, to learn as we go, to accumulate some bruises and scratches along the way. Let's pick each other up after every failure, look each other in the eyes, and say, "Keep going."

Let's love. Let's speak the words that we keep corked up like a bottle of wine we may never use--the time to pour it out in the glasses of our loved ones is now. Let's be inspired and release the dam and flood each other with grand gestures. Let's be gritty and gutsy and force the crank at the well slowly up and down to give each other a few small, precious drops during the droughts.

Let's not waste another moment.

Let's not settle for less.

Let's do this all together.

Let's not be afraid to dream dreams like this.

***

Feature photo ©2011 Christos Loufopoulos | Flickr