Tale #17: Moving On

When we go into something traumatic, experienced something that gave us this great agony, grief and just pure negative feelings, we always feel that something is weighing down our back, there's always that watery eyes and never stops, and no matter how much we stop the sobs and cries, it always escapes our mouth. There's this need to be alone, to sit in a tight corner where no one can see nor hear us and just let it all out. There are times when we would climb the highest part and scream all our pain. The pain that we tried to bottle up, the pain that we tried to keep and deal with it in the most peaceful manner. But, even with all our efforts, the bottle just shatters and the pain, grief and agony explodes.

I used to make sense of these feelings. I used to try and explain to myself why and how I am feeling these things. Why won't the tears stop? Why can't I suppress the sobs? How am I not feeling any better? All these questions continue to swirl in my brain like a tangled yarn that whenever I try to untangle the strands, it just continues to get worse and worse. I tried to plaster a smile on my face in hopes that I might convince myself that everything is fine now, but it never did. I tried drinking it all away but it never did. Every option that I tried never worked. I may have been used to the pain, but it still hurts.

I was in the spiral of darkness and pure negativity as I can't make sense of these feelings, and why I'm doing all these even though I want to stop. Until, a friend explained it to me.

It is better to explain it in the analogy of a ball in a box. First, there's this box with a pain button on one side, and a big ball. The ball is so big that whenever you move the box, the ball also moves and it inevitably hits the pain button over and over again that it comes to the point where we feel like it's no longer in our control. You keep on feeling hurt, agonized, sad and just wanting to cry.

However, most of them say that the ball gets smaller over time… but to me, it's just the box getting bigger over time. The ball never gets smaller because the grief, the pain that you felt on the very first second of that new memory embedded in your mind stays the same, it's just that because we got used to the pain-- making the box bigger-- the ball can now freely move and rarely hit the pain button.

When we remember that specific memory that makes us feel that grief and pain, we move this box and it makes the ball move too. Even though the ball doesn't hit the pain button that often, when it hits-- we feel the same pain that we felt when everything was fresh.

So, we never really move on, we just get used to the pain. Because no matter how we want to not feel that same pain, no matter how we want to forget that memory or to wish that we won't feel a thing at all… we can't. We simply can't. Because that feeling, that memory, contributes to who we are right now. It contributes to how we act, how we perceive things right now. So even though we want to badly forget and not want to feel anymore, we still treasure it all.

"We never move on. We just get used to the pain."- a very precious friend of the Author.

A/N: To all of you who feel pain, grief, agony, sadness or any negative feelings; just know that someone out there is there for you. Someone is out there who loves you, cherishes you and will help you get through this. We may have different perspective in life: some may have the ball get smaller for them, some may think like me that the box gets bigger; we all have that one (if not many) person that is right there behind our back, ready to rub it so we can calm down, to hug us so we feel safe, to comfort us in our darkest times and to just be there with us as we deal with these feelings.

P.S.: Just so you know, I also love you all. to those who still reads this story of mine... I love you.