No one is pain-free.

I'm certainly not.

My left sacroiliac (SI) joint has hurt for twenty-five years.

Every human being has pain.

Sometimes.

Sometimes it stays with you.

Like a friend to remind you that life is sometimes painful.

Some human beings have pain more often than not.

Physiological.

Like my SI joint.

Emotional.

Like my parents' divorce.

I have pain.

We all do.

What matters is what we do with the pain.

Do I just escape it at all costs?

Or do I try to learn something from it?

Anything at all.

What can this pain teach me?

How can I avoid this pain in the future?

Or should I even try to?

Maybe this pain is stretching me to my outer limits.

My pain threshold.

My comfort zone.

My 'make a fool of myself' threshold.

Maybe I can break on through to the other side.

Of the pain.

What's there now?

More pain.

Pain will never go away forever.

But that's ok.

That's normal.

That's reality.

Pain-free is a fool's game.

Expect the pain.

So I try my best to be with the pain.

To give the pain a hug.

Then send it on its way.

To breathe into it.

To breathe through it.

To see it.

To see through it.

See what's there.

On the other side.

Ouch.