One of my favorite quotes comes from The Princess Bride, as our brokenhearted hero still in his mask smirks fiercely to his unknowing, also heartbroken, long-lost love, “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.”

This, essentially and irrepressibly, is true: life is pain, and capitalism sucks. (Buddha agrees on both points, claro.) The pain aspect is true partly because we cannot grow without first suffering to some degree. Even something as seemingly emotionally minor as a change of job, really. Nothing gets better before becoming more difficult. We stretch and expand not naturally or passively, but with willful action. In order to become the people of whom we dream, we toil. To live the lives we believe we should be living, we must grow. There will never not be pain, but there will be infinite choices for handling it. Every day, all the time, we decide.

The bulk of human suffering isn’t really optional; there is nobody out there without injuries on their heart and soul. Patched up spots and tender pieces. Some are gaping wounds–I think this often about cruel people. I think, “You’re actively in pain. Where does it hurt? How can I help?” I wonder this, but only when I’m not distracted by my own scrapes and scars. But even the less-decrepit among us carry burdens, because Everyone does. We all have all degrees of these things. I can name a lot of my big ones, for sure, but most of those are physical traumas for which society has (only newly) myriad strategies. All the hurts are different sizes. Some ache with no established classification, still more are altogether unidentified. And this is true of me as well as you, and everyone we know. Life is suffering. How we deal with suffering is therefore what makes a life.

Pain just sits sometimes, takes forever and hates to be ignored. Everyone has at least a few sore spots, sure. Emotional damage festers if not tended well. It seems to me that sometimes the work takes a lifetime. It seems to me that lots of people don’t want to do any of that labor, even to exorcise the stuff long dead, in the background, just taking up good real estate.

Several years ago I decided to forgive as many people as possible. Quietly, I told my heart to set these angers down. Sometimes I nurtured replacement joys, especially when I knew this person would still be in my life, welcome or not. Sometimes I simply said goodbye to the shitty memories, willfully forgot the details. More fun was finding physical mementos to cry with, then throw away. Once in a while an unwelcome tchotchke still appears, but its departure then is unceremonious. I’ve grieved. I’ve healed. It took work, but it was more like scraping callouses than healing wounds. Immediate injuries are significantly more difficult to tend, for obvious reasons, not to mention the repeated ones. So this was something I did over time to some of my most painful grudges: I quit carrying them. It wasn’t easy, particularly because I’m impatient. But holy moly it freed me up for more lovin’! It was worthwhile labor.

I really appreciate my capacity for this, but recognize it’s unique quality. I dig it when people call in doctors to help tend their interior pain. That makes the most sense. I’ve done it many a time, and will continue to as needed. Why anyone in prolonged pain would not seek help is often beyond my grasp. I know everyone hates the doctor, but letting an injury go untended isn’t always effective. You can deal with a cold at home, but strep throat can fucking kill you (I once had it for too long before I got to the doctor and contracted scarlet fever, no shit). Sure, the dude in the supermarket who called me a bitch is soon forgettable, but it’s hard work to forgive the cruelty of a loved one.

I want to live with the pain, and I want to live lovingly. I am really unsure of how that would be possible without these efforts. I am happier, and more generous, for having slogged through, rather than around, or not at all. If only the slightest bit, I’ve helped myself heal. There’s always, always more work to do. But the other day a wise man sitting among loudly arguing loved ones noted quietly, “You can’t help somone who’s not asking.” Every day, each new pain, that’s a personal decision: heal or rot.

At the intersection of prolonged emotional damage and grievous mortal damage, there is one unfaltering, shared, true fate. Death, which leads to grief, is the result of a life. I want to use my skills with emotional pain to work in that space. I am pretty serious and excited about pursuing work as a death doula, which is basically as it sounds: a non-medical midwife for the end, almost like emotional Hospice, although far more beneficial for the loved ones who will be left behind than the dying. I’ve been taking classes and soon I will start learning on a practical level. I’m excited to be in Maine to do this. I think it will be good for me.

Most of all though, I want to talk about quotidian grief. Do you think we’d need this much therapy if we lived among people with whom we could freely feel through each emotional pain? I wonder. Like fresh herbs for manageable illness, genuine care to manage heart hurts. I want it to be as much a part of our conscious lives as it is our secret souls. I think it’s possible to face the pain, talk of it honestly among loved ones, maybe get yourself to a therapist once in a while, and go on to be a stronger you than before. Ultimately, we all need therapy like we all need our doctors. Maybe you hardly see them, but at least you’ll be able to heal when you need to. And on a daily scale, the more we discuss grief the more we let down the burden of it. Traditions of collective grief and healing exist in most cultures, for all sorts of reasons. As humans, as loved ones, we should be doing this together. Emotional labor is heavy work, which hearts cooperating can make lighter. I love when we cry together, hold space, hold each other. Let’s get closer. As Kahlil Gibran asks, “Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?” Let’s tend to our people in sorrow, so we can laugh louder when next we share joy.