Pain is Pain

It's nearly 1 in the morning and I can't sleep.

Diego and I have a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by the time he leaves for basic training. That means I count how many days he has left in order to divide them into the number of pages we have left so we know how much we need to read each day.

The downside to this is that now, as the number of days remaining gets smaller and smaller, I find myself thinking more and more about how I'm going to be reading my scriptures alone soon. The thought has entered my mind several times in the last week or so and I've had to really focus in order to keep myself from crying.

But tonight I couldn't contain it. While we were reading, I told Diego I had to go to the bathroom, and escaped for a few minutes to shed some tears that had been begging to be released for some time. Then I wiped my eyes, flushed the empty toilet, and pretended like nothing had happened.

Now it's almost 1am, Diego is sleeping, and I'm still fighting back tears. I keep thinking to myself that this is not that big of a deal, that I am going to be okay. And I also think that writing about it is just going to make people feel sorry for me, or worse, get them annoyed that once again Hannah is droning on about her depressive tendencies.

I try not to write unless I have something that I think might be universally beneficial to others who read it. Which is why I'm writing. Because I was scrolling down my Facebook feed, looking at all of the people who are going through things that are much more difficult than I am, and thought, "I have no right to complain or feel sad. I don't have it so bad."

Then I learned something. Or re-learned it. Or maybe just remembered something I'd forgotten.

I have every right to feel sad.

Another person's sadness does not diminish my own, or make it any less important.

I thought about the Savior. One of my favorite stories about him is when he raises Lazarus from the dead. Well, just before he does. Because I love how he shows compassion for Martha and Mary. He didn't say, "People get sick and die. At least he didn't suffer, or at least he wasn't brutally murdered. There are a lot of people who have it worse than you. Some people lose their whole families." Or, "At least you two still have each other. And you have me to rely on." He didn't even say, "Look, I'm going to raise him from the dead. Don't cry."

When he saw Mary crying, he cried too. He acknowledged that her pain was real. Her sadness, although it would eventually go away, was there in that moment.

Tonight, someone might be sad because they have been hurt by a loved one. Another might be sad because their dog died. Different causes don't change the fact that someone is sad. Pain is pain. You can't tell someone they shouldn't feel that way just because it may not seem that important, or because there are worse things that could happen. You shouldn't even tell yourself that.

So now that I've gotten that written down, I'm going to bed.