I remember scraping my knees on the concrete when I was a little girl playing outside, running to my mother so she can take the pain away. The red burning scrapes. I remember my first crush in kinder garden, only to find out the little boy with worn out power ranger sneakers didn't like me back; He liked the girl in pink ribbons. Growing up I never stopped to think about my physical pain nor my emotional pain. Were they the same thing? All I knew was that I did not want to ache the way I did. I never payed attention to my anger, the sadness, or nostalgia, or the red burning scrapes. I thought without knowing it that shying away from these feelings would make things much easier. Easier to pretend. Easier to approach without my true face showing what I really felt. I tricked my mind, my body and heart to create a pool of Novocaine when ever I found myself putting too much of me out into the world. I know now that physical pain and emotional pain are not the same. But I also learned that I cope with both the exact same way. No matter what kind of physical pain I endured, I found myself embracing it. I pinpointed the exact spot the pain resonated from and did nothing but pay attention to it. They'll tell you to think of anything but the pain, but that never worked for me. I instilled all my energy into the pain to the point it no longer hurt. One day I asked myself, can I do this with my emotional pain? Can I embrace all the breakups and the sad songs that remind me of them? Can I embrace the feel of missing my best friend who is 1,275 miles away? Can I keep all the pictures of the first puppy I adopted to find out later I had to give her away and take my heart back to that same day? Can I look away at the homeless women asking for some change or can I look at her and feel for her? Can I change the charity commercials to blind myself of all the families in poverty? Can I ignore the stray cat who comes to my porch in hopes I'd give scrap food? Yes I can but I refuse to. I will turn up the sad song and cry If I need to. I will buy a plane ticket to see my best friend because I remember how much my heart misses her everyday. I will keep my puppies pictures to look back on the times she was mine and embrace the ache I bury in her images. I will look at the homeless women and brush my fingertips against hers as I give her the change that lies in my pocket. I will watch the world in poverty and feel their pain to embrace it as my own. I will feed the stray cat who comes to my door allowing me to get too close. To feel is to be alive. To feel is to approach things better than you would if you approached with no feeling at all. They say if I put too much of myself into the world that I will drain my body, I will kill myself in my wake. But I pay no mind to those who do not want to feel a little too much. I will allow myself to get too close for I have learned the only way to endure the pain is to embrace it.
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