A Paradox And A Puzzle

Here's a paradox. Pain is easier to write about than gain.

I felt a little better yesterday. It's hard to write about that, because it isn't like I have joy or happiness to write about. It's that the unhappiness was a little less. Because I love analogies, here's an appropriate one. It's like having an excruciating headache. Every shooting, throbbing pain is easy to describe. So you take the Advil, and 20 minutes later, the pain has subsided some. How do you describe that? All you can say is that it doesn't hurt as much. There are no beams of sunshine to describe and no magical orchestras playing Disney tunes. It's just beige. Sometimes beige is OK, but who ever wrote a love song about beige?

The escapist in me doesn't want to think about why yesterday was better. The fatalist in me will say that, if yesterday was better, than today is going to suck. The realist in me says that whatever I want today to be, it won't be. The optimist in me ran away when I was 6, and hasn't been heard from since.

But the part of me that is trying to be an active participant in my own life wonders if I feel better because I've written stuff down in the last couple of days, and talked about it with one or two people. People in the program say that's what you have to do. Like an abscess, you have to open up the wound, let the infection drain, treat it gently and it will eventually go away. I've been hearing "talk about it" for months. But I'm not a "talk about it" kind of guy.

As a kid, there was one cardinal rule about everything. Don't talk about it. Don't talk about your father's girlfriend or his drinking. Don't talk about your mother being cold and detached. Don't talk about being alone day after day and night after night. Don't talk about not having any friends and your parents not liking anybody who tries to be your friend. Don't talk about the fact that you aren't allowed to bring Coca-Cola into the house, but at 13 you can share after-work cocktails with your parents.

Don't complain. About anything. Because in our house, the standard method of dealing with unhappiness was: "You don't like it? Just shut up, or I'll really give you something to complain about."

So for me, talking about anything so personal does not come naturally or easily. Writing is a good substitute, and can help me find my voice. It helps when I eventually talk to my sober friend R, who has become my very closest friend, and the one person I can say anything to. And it helps that I now have my friend B, who shares my understanding for writing about feelings. That he shares so much, so well and so candidly in his words, gives me the strength to write my own.

So I guess that's why I feel better. It frightens me that I am telling more people about my writing. No ads on buses or late night infomercials. But I've given a few people here and there the web address. It frightens me that more people know what I'm thinking and why. I like having secrets and knowing secrets. I like never, ever revealing secrets. Opening up the closet door to all this stuff scares the hell out of me.

I started with a paradox. I leave you with a puzzle.
Up is the opposite of down.
Go is the opposite of stop.
So, what is the opposite of pain?
Caution: "No pain" is not an acceptable answer.
Pain is a feeling. No pain is not.

So... What is the opposite of pain?