Nothing Hurts If You Don’t Let It

During an especially weird time of my life, I printed this quote onto pastel pink paper and taped it to my bathroom mirror. I wanted so badly to believe it was true. To embody the attitude that nobody could hurt me if I didn’t let them. That I was untouchable, impervious to pain. Or course, wanting something to be true is eons away from it actually being true, but the sentiment was enthralling.

Hemingway, I should note, was a notorious drunk. Maybe nothing does hurt when you dampen your veins with alcohol each night. He grew famous for his ability to drink unceasingly, but interestingly enough, he never drank while he was writing. Hemingway also famously said, “write hard and clear about what hurts.” He was a man who knew pain, both physical and mental. He was badly wounded in World War I where he served as an ambulance driver, emerging from war with a crippled leg that bothered him for the rest of his life. Later, in 1954, he nearly died in two separate plane crashes. He was married four times and in 1961, he ended his own life at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.

“Nothing hurts if you don’t let it” sounds nice, but I’m not sure it’s true. Hemingway’s quote implies the type of idealized self-reliance that Americans love but that few of us have truly figured out how to embrace. I definitely haven’t figured it out yet, but a nationwide quarantine is a good time to…