#91: The Weight.
That disastrous first date with the girl of your high school dreams during which you threw up on her, that still haunts you in the dead of night.
Your childhood ambitions of being Elvis, Taylor Swift, or Michael Bublé. (Depending on your age or musical preferences.) Or Tom Cruise or Meryl Streep. (Depending on your gender preferences.)
That eight-month battle to get a raise which ended in abject failure after you were informed that 26¢ increase you got last year that you thought was a cost-of-living thing was your raise.
(Yes, that was an oddly specific example. Shut up.)
Your novel that landed with a thud.
Your crappy childhood.
That freak accident that literally haunts you every day with waves of pain.
Watching one of your best friends slowly turn away until he was ultimately lost forever.
A marriage that disintegrates before imploding altogether.
Whatever traumas you carry every day that weigh your soul down, threatening to drown it in a tsunami of sorrow, just remember: You’re not alone.
The pain we carry with us, whether we acknowledge it or not, defines us. It directs our every action. (Mostly subliminally.) To quote James Tiberius Kirk:
I don’t want my pain taken away! I need my pain!
So don’t let the weight hold you in place, use it.
Use it to move forward. Use it be stronger and faster than ever before. Acknowledge that the weight has its place in our lives. You may not like it (unless you’re a little twisted) but you need to respect it.
After all, it’s your pain, and only yours.
Own it and be free of it.
You've Been Hooked! 
Gotta carry all the weight you have and resolve it will make you a better person. What is interesting about this post is every single one of these things has happened to me. (Hold on. Except for throwing up on that high school girl. She threw up on me.)
Yikes!
But you clean up well, John.
Thank you Robert. The freak accident took place 61 years ago and I’m reminded with the pain everyday. I don’t think at this stage I woud know what to do without it.
Hook, I’m so glad to hear you say this. You have missed your dear friend terribly, and now he is empowering you to move forward. Yes!!
I still think of Ronnie often, but I’m not as haunted by how his story played out, it’s true, J.
And yes, I’m trying to regain some momentum in terms of achieving my dreams, something Rockin’ never had the chance to fully realize.
Your writing feels like what you just said.
You might bnever gt over the loss of a dear friend but ventually you can move on from it. Imploding marriages can leave you very wounded. But at least you note that you’re not alone. Remember when the traumas get to weigh too much that there are ears available to listen and friends to offer support. Hugs
Astute and wise. Use it, indeed. And survive stronger and more resilient than before. Watch out life. Hook’s on the move.
I’m loving these Robert!
That’s the plan. It was on this morning sixteen years ago I woke up in a hospital bed unable to move the right side of my body or even sit up. With the help of a team of professionals who I owe my life to, I struggled to get out of that bed and into a wheelchair, and then out of that chair to walk around on my own with a quad-cane. That cane is sitting just to my right as I type this. Every step I take is a reminder that I can’t walk right, and that by some damn miracle, I can walk at all. Motivation to do the exercises the PTs gave me? It shows up between here and the floor where I do them with the abbreviated steps it takes me to get over there. Also in the memory of those other patients at the rehab hospital who just didn’t seem that interested in getting with the program of their own recoveries. I will never understand them, and for me, that’s a very good thing.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
No Pain, No Gain (thank you weightlifting), When life hands you lemons, make lemonade, Where there’s a will, there’s a way, When the going gets tough, the tough get going…….all sayings I’m working on making happen……
You’ve provided an interesting perspective, my dear Hook. Pain/loss is not something you “get over.” It’s something you get through, learn how to be the You it has made, to make/create your world beyond…
I once asked a musician friend (won’t mention him here) if “that song is about us.” He said, in part, that when you have loved someone, cared about someone, shared your life with someone, they become a part of you, and afterwards, all that you do encompasses that person in little ways, so that part of them is in everything you do and are.
Yes, my dear Hook, this song is about us.
Thank you.