When something hurts, it is tempting to hurry towards what it has taught me. An explanation can make the experience feel tidier. It may also mean I have skipped over the part that actually hurts.
There can be a lesson later. There can also be sadness now, with no useful conclusion attached. I do not have to turn every difficult experience into something improving before I can speak about it. Sometimes the honest sentence is simply that this is hard. That gives another person somewhere real to meet me.
An original reflection by Theo Luke Dornan. Independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous or AA World Services.