Aging & Pain — Do We Feel More As We Age

As a female, I have lived with pain every month since I was twelve years old. For others, the pain began at nine. Pregnancy and menopause gave some of us a break. Being born in a poor country without resources that would water my dreams is painful. Being hungry most of my childhood hurts like hell. Being short of everything while growing up hurts. With parents who can’t love me, it hurts. Poverty and all of its companions add pain and hell to my life.

Children feel the pain of hunger deeper than they feel the joy of love. Both love and hunger leave pain that teaches vital life lessons that stay with us no matter what. I am telling you because I was one of them. Hunger’s pain goes everywhere deep in your body and stays there even when you are no longer hungry. So does love’s pain. But we can heal from a broken heart. Hunger’s visits more often than love.

As a black female, I knew my life would be a painful one. So, I began practicing pain management when I was in my teens. Life didn’t give me a choice. Life doesn’t give many of us a choice.

I am changing thanks to aging. Life is changing, so is our world. It doesn’t care if we are young or old. It does care if we are ready or not. It demands we adapt or die. Lately, things that didn’t hurt before are hurting now. It’s like, as I age, pain is coming from somewhere different. Somewhere, my body, heart, mind, and soul don’t know. Movies I used to watch years ago, depending on the plot, now make me feel pain when I watch them. Cruelty, thoughtlessness, discrimination, hatred, pain, or anything that hurts the characters hurts me. I can read and feel their pain.

I often wondered if they are good actors. But reading their emotions, my instincts informed me that many of them have been here before. What I see is the truth, mistaken as an Oscar-worthy performance.

I had to turn the TV off most of the time, or leave the room if my husband wanted to watch it. Watching the news, too, and seeing the injustice and wars that are contributing to the death and pain of so many innocent children, adds to my pain.

I have days when I am in so much pain, I want to go to another world. I create my own, but can’t keep pain out. Yes, pain is a part of our lives, but why must humans keep adding pain to our world?

Does aging make pain more debilitating?

With our knowledge of life and the challenges we faced, overcame, and learned from, shouldn’t that make us stronger?

Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s because I can feel and read emotions. Maybe it’s because I know and understand life better than the average person. Maybe it’s because I feel too much. Maybe it’s because pain knows me more than I know myself. I think too much and too deeply. I can see hell behind the smile, amid the laughter, in the struggle and the fight humans endure daily.

Every action, choice, and decision comes from deep within me. Maybe it’s because I know where the truth lives. Yes, the truth doesn’t live at the surface. It is often hidden deep within the roots of the heart, soul, and mind. A place where many fear to tread. A place where pain resides rent-free.

Yes, I go too deep. So, I will feel deep.

Aging takes us to depths youth doesn’t know.

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