Fighting to Stay Present
Even When You know There's Pain Ahead
Issue #30/ Welcome to Good and Beautiful Things, thanks so much for joining me in this space.
The three of us are swept up by the passion and artistry radiating from the musicians onstage. In a swirl of guitar and strings and the vibrant pinks that silhouette the performers, I feel myself lifting off the ground. My husband, my son and I hover in the air, shoulders pressed against shoulders as the music and the shared moment defy gravity. The audience joins in the chorus while my son films one of our favorite songs and I know I’ll be able to hear his voice when I watch it later. It’s a souvenir that can’t be purchased like a poster. I’m fully awake in this moment, my body compelled to move with the rhythm and the joy, but it also feels like a dream. I don’t want the moment to end, I don’t want to wake and feel the pain of hitting the ground when the concert is over.
I know there will be bruises.
***
It’s a few days after the concert and I’m firmly back on the ground.
The moment I’ve been anticipating all summer has almost arrived. In one week our second-born child moves out for her junior year of college. It feels like I just got her back since she returned from two semesters abroad in France at the end of June. A few days after she leaves, our only son moves out for his freshman year of college. Since our eldest daughter is already out in the world, that leaves just one of our four children at home.
It’s a double-blow to this mama’s heart and I’m doing the best I can to make it through.
There’s a part of me that wants to chase the high of the concert earlier this week, to hover outside of time.
The other part of me longs to go to sleep and let the rest of the family watch one last movie together and eat one last favorite meal. Buried in a perpetual stage of REM, I could skip the part where their belongings get loaded in the car, skip past the goodbyes and the depressing return to an altered house, empty of my daughter’s crazy laughter or my son’s comforting hugs.
***
“Stay Awake.”
It’s the one phrase from my morning devotional that lingers when its over.
The words follow me around the rest of the day.
***
Why would I be tempted to sleep through those important moments? Because the truth is that I’m not great at hanging out between the sorrow and sweetness I know each of these moments will bring.
In fact, my brain has been known to work extra hard to shut down the threat of incoming feelings. Early on in my life my brain decided that all big, hard feelings were dangerous to my nervous system. Even joyful feelings can set off an alarm because experience has taught me that where joy is, pain is just around the corner. ‘Is joy worth the cost'?’ my subconscious has been known to ask.
You’re familiar with the many ways that a person can block out feelings with food, alcohol, television, etc, but six years ago my brain added another strategy. It marked the beginning of my life with chronic pain. When big feelings are headed my way, my brain instigates physical pain to distract me. This is part of an elite security system my brain has developed to protect me from emotional pain.
No pain is off limits if it works: abdominal pain, bladder pain, bathroom frequency, dizziness, headaches, throat pain, back pain and foot pain. In a confusing and frustrating way, my brain thinks that it’s helping me out1 .
This security system is another way of putting me to sleep.
Ironically, it’s only by staying present and giving my brain a channel to feel the big feelings that the physical pain (sometimes) backs off.
***
“Stay awake.”
***
I have a talk with myself. This is something I do nowadays. I take on the role of both good cop and bad cop.
Me, speaking in a voice I would use with one of my kids if they were having a hard time:
I know you’re feeling sad about these changes and scared about what’s next. I know you think we’re safer if we just don’t feel any of these feelings and end up in bed only able to focus on managing the physical pain and binging a Netflix show.”
My tone gets increasingly firm and confident.
But that’s not what’s best for us. We don’t need physical pain as a distraction to keep us safe. We can put on our big girl pants and handle the emotions. We can stay fully awake through this and still be safe. We want to stay awake through this. So knock it off.
***
Staying awake doesn’t mean avoiding all forms of comfort. It doesn’t mean I have to feel all the feelings all the time. It doesn’t mean making rules around how to stay awake.
It does mean that I talk to myself sometimes (see above). It also means choosing things that comfort me but don’t necessarily numb me. For me, that’s taking a bike ride. It’s cutting flowers from the garden. It’s journaling, writing this newsletter, and making art. Sometimes it’s giving myself permission to watch Netflix as an act of self-compassion on my nervous system. Or crunching through a pack of Sweethearts so that the loudest sensation is the tart flavors on my tongue. These are like cat naps that support the waking hours.
***
I’m sitting on my front porch working on this newsletter. The chatter of baby finches keeps grabbing my attention and my eyes go to the plant hanging a few feet away. We’ve had three different nests of finches this summer, all in the ferns hanging on our front porch. We’ve watched the process over and over again: the construction of the nest, the appearance of perfect oval eggs, the helpless babes with mouths open wide, the brave teenagers launching from the nest.
Just now I took a break to go say hello to the birds and as I approached the plant, the two fledglings flew off into a tree nearby, leaving the nest empty.
I’m a bit annoyed at God in this moment. Do you really need to use such an obvious metaphor? I’m highly aware that our own nest2 is emptying out, I don’t need to see a literal empty nest to feel the approaching loss right behind my rib cage?
Just making sure you're awake, he answers.
I am, I say with a bit of exasperation.
But even in the silence that follows I can feel his invitation and I know he’s not scolding me.
Well, I’m trying to, I answer honestly this time.
Continue the Journey
From the Archives
Two more newsletters that reference my chronic pain journey:
Living Beyond My Limitations and When a Puzzle Stops Being Fun.
Two more newsletters about parenting: A Time Travel Story and Permission to be a Beginner.
Two more newsletters about wrestling with my emotions and myself: A Permission Slip for Living and A Collage of Old and New.
On Substack
Shawn Smucker’s beautiful newsletter about this same season of parenting: When There are Things I Want to Tell You.
In Ashlee Gadd’s most recent newsletter, she writes about The Sweet Spot of parenting.
Favorite Find
Walking with Sam: A Father, A Son and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain by Andrew McCarthy: At first I found it really strange to read an intimate portrait of parenting through the eyes of 80’s movie star Andrew McCarthy. But soon I found myself nodding along as he shared relatable moments. As I followed McCarthy and his son further down the road, I felt like I had a friend on this crazy journey we call parenting.
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From the Sketchbook Archives: Our Guest Nest
Blessings from the Guest Nest,
-Aimee
This idea behind chronic pain and it’s connection to emotions might be a new one for you. And I am not here to tell you that it explains YOUR chronic pain. I can only share what I’ve learned about myself during my six year journey and I still have so much more to learn. Two resources that have been helpful for me are John Sarno’s book The Mind Body Prescription and Nicole Sach’s Podast, The Cure for Chronic Pain.
Beyond the regular connection of home as a “nest”, we actually named our house The Guest Nest because we love birds and our last name is ‘Guest’. So you can see why it felt like God was really belaboring the point with the nests on our porch!
As a man who struggles with ‘goodbyes’ - take that all the way back to boarding school from age 8 (actually I am REALLY fine with the moments immediately after the goodbye just the lead up and the actual thing is unbearable) this struck a chord. Crikey, really feeling the ‘empty nest’ part. You sound like you have a wonderful family, fun to be with and young adults who don’t mind hanging out with the ‘olds’. Promising for the future when they’ll be drawn back to your hub of loveliness. We have friends with 5 ‘kids’ and they all tumble back thro the door of their cottage and slip into gorgeous family routines. Now with lovers, partners, children of their own ... I see that in your future. PS, my painful goodbyes are now from our grandchildren. I cry EVERY time of parting. Beautiful writing
Dear Aimee,
I'm not sure how I found your newsletter. It may have been a comment you left or a suggested follow of Substack, or some other accidental (or not) discovery. No matter though...I really love your writing, style and topics and all. Thanks for writing, and for sharing it with us.