If not for pain, I think life would be a grand mistake. It is the roadmap of my scars that I will follow to my life's destination. Without pain, there would be no growth. No change. No movement forward. Pain is what pushes us, what bends us and breaks us and molds us into what we are. It erodes our weaknesses, it tests our strengths. It riddles us with holes so that the winds of time don't blow us backwards, into mistakes we've already made. It burns us to the ground so that we can rise again, better. Not everyone is a phoenix. Not everyone gets up. I get that. But those who do live differently. Pain is what makes each moment a precious wound, an ache in our hearts, a treasure so unutterably valuable that we must grab hold of it, cherish it, that any departure from what we truly believe is right is a terrible crime, for we will never live that moment over again. Pain is what life is truly about. The feeling of it, the surviving of it, the avoidance of it, the overcoming of it, the attempt to forget it. Life revolves around pain. How much of it you've been dealt, and how you use yours. You bond with those who have suffered the same sorrows that you have. You seek out ways and people and moments that alleviate your suffering, whatever it may be. The fact that we can feel pain allows us to feel joy, to notice the little twinge in every happy moment that keeps it sweet, and lends it the necessary tension of something that will inevitably end. Pain is what it's all about. And once I accept mine, I thank those who caused me pain. Not because they were right to do so, not because I forgive them, but because I love who I am, and I have grown because I have suffered. Change isn't pretty. Change isn't slow and subtle, soft and sweet. Change is a lightning strike. Change is cataclysmic. An explosion, or implosion, of everything that you are. A wrecking ball to your mind and heart, an earthquake reducing the city of your soul to rubble. Change is meant to be deeply disturbing, deeply upsetting. (Yes, you're doing it right.) Because we do not tend to change unless something forces us. Change is the most agonizing thing you can go through. But as somebody I am quite fond of once said, "Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation." The roadmap of my scars will take me where I need to go, and it may not be an easy way, but at the end I know I will find happiness.