Walls

It's a defense mechanism, a coping strategy, a shield, an out - to intellectualize, to think poetically, to turn the reality of the situation into an abstract concept so as to distance myself from it. Today at my father's side in the hospital, feeding him ice chips and watching his body shake uncontrollably from pain, it occurred to me that I have long thought I understood suffering. Political suffering in the misrepresentation of people's values in our government system; social suffering in the stigma and judgment surrounding mental illness and homosexuality; relational suffering in the countless breakups and small deaths of friendships I've mourned. But this, this physical suffering, I do not understand. In political, social and relational forms of suffering I can understand the abstract concept of growth, the linear reasoning behind the answer to the question "Why did this have to happen, goddammit?" However, all reasoning is thrown out the window in the face of my sick dad, who does not look like my well dad. I don't know how to control this at all, and that scares me to hell.