Pouring Water Into a Full Glass

August 2022

“It’s nothing compared to the pain that you must be going through, but it was pretty terrible for me at the time.” While I understand and appreciate that empathetic sentiment, anymore I truly wish that people would stop trying to qualify or downgrade their own pain. As if someone must always be suffering more. 

I agree that some extenuating circumstances might make my situation more logistically difficult or overwhelming than some other losses. And sure, if we are looking at the bullet points of what got me here, on paper I might secure a higher seeding in the “Causation of Grief” tournament bracket.

But I’m guessing there’s never a need for us to grade or quantify such things, especially once we’ve reached a pain plateau. So while my situation reads like a horror story, I’m confident that I’m in no more pain than anybody else who is dealing with or has dealt with significant loss or suffering.

We can only hurt as much as we are capable of hurting. You can keep pouring water into a full glass all you want, but it can bear no more than it’s already collected. And we have all brimmed at one point or another.