Pain

Growing up is all about getting hurt.  And then getting over it.  You hurt.  You recover.  You move on.  Odds are pretty good you're just going to get hurt again.  The positive side of this is that each time your hurt, you learn something.  Each time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that there are more flavors of pain than coffee.  There's the empty pain of leaving something behind - graduating, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown.  There's the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expectations.  There's the sharp pains of failure, and the obscure pains of successes that didn't give you what you thought they would.  There are the vicious, stabbing, pains of hopes being torn up.  The sweet pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life as they grow and learn.  There's the steady pain of empathy they you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens.  And if you are very, very lucky, there are a few blazing hot pains you feel when you realize that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or laughter which at the same time cannot possibly last, and yet will remain with you for life.

Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it:  Pain is for the living.  Only the dead do not feel it.  Pain is a part of life.  Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's part of the big puzzle.  Pain does two things:  It teaches you, tells you that you're alive.  Then it passes away and leaves you changed.  It leaves you wiser, sometimes.  Sometimes it leaves you stronger.  Pain leaves it's mark and everything important that will ever happen to you is going to involve it in one degree or another.