The Normal Amount of Pain is Zero

A friend of mine (Hi Kerry!) was asked a few years ago what her pain level was at. She responded, “Oh, you know, the normal amount of pain.” Her provider responded, “The normal amount of pain is zero.” She laughed about that, because that was not her experience with life. It’s not mine, either. I keep revisiting this conversation about pain, and yesterday, found myself wondering when my normal level of pain stopped being zero. I think it was when Mercy died. I think it’s been twenty years since I was at a zero level of pain. I keep seeking out pain as my drug of choice because when I’m in pain, I forget about pain. If that makes sense to you, read on.

I am recovering from various kinds of grief: my daughter’s loss at birth, the loss of my faith in God, the loss of my religious foundation and my religious community, the loss of my marriage, and the loss of my sense of self as a Mormon sahm mom and as a full-time writer. On one level, I am doing what almost everyone does at mid-life: reassessing my previous certainties and letting go of them, then rebuilding who I am. I am trying out new things, rejecting them as inadequate and wondering if there is anything out there that is “THE THING” that will bring me what I have lost and what I now suspect is not actually possible, fullness and certainty and goodness and a sense that “I am enough.” Or rather, I am realizing that the only person who is coming to save me is me. The only thing that will tell me I am enough is me.

I hate this.

I really, really hate this.

I look back at the last twenty years of kicking and screaming and trying to use Ironman triathlon as a way of proving to myself, to the people around me, to the universe itself, that I am tough enough and that I can handle enough pain to deal with anything, to make myself perfect or perfect enough. I look back at this and think—this really has not been working for me. So let’s do it SOME MORE. Let’s take the LSAT and apply to law schools and see if THAT will make me whole. Let’s keep doing races even though my body is screaming for more rest and time off and keeps showing new injuries to try to convince me that whatever adrenaline rushes or endorphins that exercise is producing are really not the way forward.

I don’t want to change.

So I guess my body is trying to force the issue.

When was the last time I wasn’t in pain?

Before Mercy died. Probably a few years before that, because I was doing triathlon on a lower scale and I did my first marathon without any training before that.

I remember in my twenties that exercise was something I did because I liked it. Not because it allowed me to enter an altered consciousness where *I* didn’t exist anymore. Just because I liked moving my body. In my twenties, I would have insisted that I didn’t like running because it hurt and I had no interest in racing because I liked not being in pain.

Can I get back to that?

What would it take to let go of the need to wake up every morning and turn off my body’s signals that I am in pain and instead choose to rest until I am not in pain anymore and then exercise at a level that does not ever cause pain?

I resist this. I am still resisting this.

I am bargaining. With God? With the universe? Am I an addict in need of a program and some sponsors?

I want to just cut back a little. Until I can do Ironman like I used to.

Except do I really want that or is that just stasis?

I like the old feedback loop,

Mostly. Sometimes.

I want to change and not be in pain. So why am I not doing things that lead to less pain?

I am sitting with these questions and I don’t have any answers today. I am going to write on my bathroom mirror, “The normal amount of pain is zero” and see if that leads to any insights.