Pain is Relative

Yesterday, I ran to the next town and back. That is a sentence I never thought I’d say, or type for that matter, in my lifetime. I chose to run my 18 miles from Florence, MT to Lolo, MT and back for strategic bathroom placement that my training group’s route was lacking. And while the well placed gas station on my route was, in fact, necessary…I did miss all the runners in the group around me to keep me going. The first nine miles to the gas station went really well. To reward myself, I stopped in the gas station and lingered there for a good 15 minute break. Mistake. The next nine miles were absolutely hellish. I thought well, this should be not so bad…after all…I’m running back home. Home. A place with wonderful cushy couches, cold clean well water that I can drink by the gallons and access to a plate full of chips and salsa and a promise of a milkshake. Home is only nine miles away I said to myself.

Then on mile…I don’t really remember, maybe 12 or 13…it started. Pain. Now…I know from my own experience, what people tell me and my grandfather that pain is truly relative. I’m sure you know this truth as well. It’s not hard to figure out that my pain in my feet and knees and hips and well…most of my muscles from the waist down is only painful to me and at the same time not so unique. Other runners feel similar and relative pains of their own. We can empathize or sympathize, I never know which one to use in this context...but the point is…we don’t feel it ourselves…we can only maybe imagine it.

I’ve known this since I was young and chose to spend my summer days in a small town in Pennsylvania with my Dad’s father and my Mom’s mother. On hot nights, I slept on my Grandmother’s screened in porch and spent the mornings with her and her friends learning how to properly cheat at cards. In the evenings, my Grandfather would come by and pick me up for dinner. Then we’d go for a drive to grab an ice cream cone and catch a baseball game on the radio. Those drives seemed to last forever…he’d quiz me on what direction we were going and the importance of the communication between the catcher and the pitcher…maybe talk about the admiration for a well hit frozen rope down the third baseline and then we would eventually make our way back to the nursing home where my Grandmother lived her final days. I didn’t know it then but those drives were long for a reason. You see…my Grandfather was in his relative pain. When we arrived at the home he would bring her the “not too thick but not too thin” chocolate milkshake with one scoop of malt that she liked best. She would greet us with a smile but also a question wondering where we “had gotten too.” She loved getting that shake, she loved seeing a familiar face but she hated that nursing home and she told him about it every night. I would slip into the hall and wait. And my Grandmother would plead with my Grandfather to take her home. Somehow…he would calm her…and manage to leave her there and still wink and smile at me in the hallway to let me know it was all okay. Then we’d drive back to his house; turn on the last innings…me curled up on what he called “the davenport” and him in his armchair…with the sounds of the game putting us both to sleep. I’d usually have to wake him and he’d take me back to my Mom's mother's house on the other side of town.

What I never thought about until yesterday on that long run is that pain is relative really means pain can be lonely. I’m pretty sure my run went terribly wrong in the end because I couldn’t commiserate…even with just a roll of the eyes to another runner to suggest, “Man, this is hard but worth it.” I was out there on my own. While this is not really a huge problem or shouldn’t be for a runner…for me right now (novice and naïve) I need those other runners around me. I know this as much as I know my Grandfather, that seemed to make everything okay at all times, was actually lonely in his pain and found my company (even as a 11 year old girl that probably acted bored and, at times, ungrateful) to be a comfort. I also know this to be true for Hannah. With no parents (birth, adoptive or foster) to claim as hers…she is in her relative and lonely pain. I know we can all try to imagine what this might feel like but I also know this pain is uniquely hers. And I also know she feels alone in it and needs the Youth Homes (and our community) to be her comfort.

So pain is relative...and lonely. And seems to wax and wane in its ability to affect you according to your readiness for it. I’m not sure I would say bracing yourself for pain makes you feel it less…actually; I think I’d say almost the opposite. Bracing yourself pretty much guarantees it will hurt more. You know it’s coming so you wince at the thought of it and roll up in a ball up and just wait. But if you experience it…face it every day and let it happen…maybe you can make your way through it…maybe you can find someone to lean on and then in the end…come out stronger for it.