by R, Sacramento
Pain is a word I have heard a lot. It’s also something I have dealt with a lot. Since I was a child, I’ve experienced pain. Both physical and mental or emotional pain I know very well. As physical gain goes, I have broken my hand and shin. I have also been burned, cut, and jumped.
To me, physical pain is easier to deal with than mental pain. If it’s physical, you are hurt for a while, a couple days, couple weeks, or a couple of months. But your body is going to heal eventually because that’s what it’s supposed to do.
Emotional pain is a lot harder to deal with, if you can deal with it at all. It could take years to get over or come to peace with emotional pain. For me, the worst emotional pain I have dealt with would have to be watching my mom lose everything she had, which caused my whole family to start to slowly fall apart.
The second would have to be calling my sibling from jail and hearing them ask me when I am going to come home, when I know I won’t be home for a couple of years. And when I get out, I know they’re going to be grown up and different than I remember them now.
I still struggle with these things, but I know there is nothing I can do to change that. All I can do is my time and hope I can get out as early as possible. It’s hard to heal something that’s still open especially because I was going through so much with my siblings.
And I feel like I left them to deal with it themselves when I’m used to making sure they get what they need and make sure they’re safe. Now I just have to put it in someone else’s hands to do what I should be doing. That’s what hurts the worst, just knowing I can’t do anything for them.