One of the toughest feats is watching someone you love go through pain. A pain that has no end, no beginning, no resolution or solution. Swirly twirly cycles of pain. I would argue that perhaps harder than the pain itself, is sitting in it, being uncomfortable and not urgently trying to fix it, especially when the pain isn’t your own. And the desire to run away and save yourself grows to be so thick, that it chokes you, leading you to believe that the only safety is far away from the person of pain. Far, far away from her.

When I was living in Nepal, I went to a refugee camp for women who had been rescued out of sex trafficking schemes. As happens often in my travels, I grow rather pig-headed in my idea of being present with people, believing myself often to have no room for growth in this area. These women and their stories were like a slap of cold water all across my core. I thought I had the words, I thought I had the strength, the resiliency, the hope through all of this, to stand on the other side and be able to say “well look at me, though”; how naive. I was not only left speechless but ripped entirely raw by these women, their stories, the depth of their pain. And gosh, I wanted to run. Run so far from the place with the badness and the pain all wrapped in a warm tortilla of heartache and bewilderment. Ugh, I wanted to run and never be reminded of my past again. Never hear another story about rape, money, pain, sweating, sluts; the powerless given so willingly to the powerful. I wanted nothing to do with it. I forced my ears to close and my mind to wander to a place no one else has seen. Yet, when I came back from that place, I was still sitting in the circle with these women, eyes darkened and glistening, face tight and sagging, shoulders stretched and knees bent.

They were still there and I was still there. They were still talking and I was still listening. So I softened myself to the discomfort and the never ending cycles of pain; I didn’t fight it, I didn’t run from it, I felt it. I felt it all. I survived it all. I softened and I stayed.