After Medications And Life Lessons Learned - Does Pain Really Go Away?

Listening to Anne and Karine arguing while enjoying lunch in their favorite cafe.

“That happened more than fifteen years ago. Let go of the pain!” Karine shouts at her, dropping her fork in her plate of shrimp schampy. 

“But I did,” Anne says, swallowing a big gulp of her grape juice. 

“So why don’t you want to go back into the business with us?” Karine asks, easing her half-empty plate away.

Anne grinned as memories of their last failed business and the unreturned money resurfaced. She took a serious approach and said, “I let the pain go, but the pain didn’t let me go.”

“I don’t understand,” Karine said, glancing down at her meal.

Sighing deeply, Anne stepped back into her life, wiping her mouth with napkins the cafe provided. “My Aunt Daisy wasn’t a very good cook and not a clean person. At the family reunion, whatever she bought was thrown away. One year she bought mac and cheese with chunks of roast beef. Someone mistook her meal for someone else. Everyone got sick, and a cousin died from the peanuts she mistakenly used to sprinkle on the top with cheese.”

“So what!” Karine cried out.

“I don’t eat mac and cheese from anyone, anywhere, anymore,” Anne said.

“Get to the point!”

Sighing while scratching her forehead with her index finger, she elaborated, “I left the pain of the loss of my favorite cousin go, but it’s the pain that determines I am careful where and who I eat from.”

“So you learn from life. All of us do,” Karine stressed in frustration. 

“The last time you talked me into arguing with Tony about the money he owes me, he dropped off the radar, and I am still owed $250,” Anne reminded her. 

Karine shrugged her shoulders. 

Anne went on, “The last business idea I told you about, you shut me down. Then stole my idea and went into business with her. When you failed, you blamed me.”

“But your idea worked for you and still is,” she said with regret. 

“Because it was mine and I knew how to maintain it, and thank god I didn’t tell you how,” Anne recalls. 

“Ok, I made a mistake,” she accepted. 

“Do you remember all of the things that happen in your life that add pain and regret to it?” Anne asked.

“Who does?” Karine’s anger demanded.

“I do,” Anne said. “Why do you think I don’t repeat hell? I told you, the pain never leaves me.”

“But how can you live with so much pain and still function how you do?”

“I turn humanity’s cruelty into life lessons. So the pain stays without hurting me. And whenever I am about to repeat hell and be stupid, the pain resurfaces as a Deja vu asking, ‘Didn’t we do this already, and it took us to hell? You might forget, but I didn’t,’” Anne explained.

“You are insane!” Karine cried. 

“Maybe, but I don’t have the problems you do,” Anne reminded her.

After a long, deep sigh, she asked, “You really remember all of the things in your life that cause you pain?”

“How do you think I managed to live my life with so much common sense and care? I don’t like pain, so I don’t do anything that will increase it,” Anne explained. 

“Like investing money in our business?” Karine asked.

“Damn right!” Anne said, looking at her with a serious expression. “When you came up with that idea of me putting my hard-earned money in your business, I experienced my deja vu pain moment, remembering what happened the last time.” 

I do have many deja vu moments linked to pain, kindness, forgiveness, understanding, hatred, cruelty, and everything that heals and helps. Also those that hinder and harm. 

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it.