vacuum. Rather, the chance to impact, say, the people on the fringe, or the classmate who lacks social skills, comes when we are willing to draw near. Talk to them. Help shed their discomfort by taking it on ourselves, so they feel more comfortable. This principle of discomfort for another’s ultimate comfort isn’t new. It’s learned. An impulse to draw near to another in their ickiness is completely opposite to our natural instinct for comfort. It is far easier for us to flee the room than stay seated. I only began learning to sit in another’s discomfort when I was the recipient of such examples. This lesson in empathy was highlighted for me when I realized my abnormalness for crying—often in public spaces. I cry with great abundance. The student union, gym, walk back from class, or even Target—they’ve all seen my tears—and they don’t all come with free tissues. Yet in those moments of freefall, when I can’t contain my struggles, I find that my roommate stops her work to listen, my friend lends me her room to rest in, and my sister shares her own stories to help me with mine. Thrust into my pain, they make uncomfortable choices to comfort me. My best friends give me grace before guilt, help rather than hell. (And always tissues for my tears.) My older sister sticks around my stickiness. Unlike the waiter I embarrassed when asking about his wig, she would rather serve my table than leave.
pain are like my mom—their pain becomes invisible in the specter of their endurance—while people more sensitive to it reveal their burdens more quickly. Whatever end of the spectrum we fall on, high pain tolerance or low, is still in direct conflict with our aversion to discomfort and our desire for ease. Several years ago, I heard a sermon about getting sticky. We were reminded to move past the comfortable limit of small talk, condolences, or quick lunches—as important as they are—and be willing to press into the less easy moments that take more time. Getting sticky is a complete contradiction to avoiding pain. The stickiness of undeserved blame, inadvertently hurt feelings, or poor decision making is hard to rub off. The longer our hands are in the mess, the more pain we are encouraged to tolerate. I watched as my parents visited their dying friend in hospice, willing to wade through the literal, uncomfortable silence of sitting with a man who had lost his ability to speak. At other times, I talked with a childhood friend who was willing to call me out on my bullshit: painful then, but a gift now. It is in the stickiness I learned, as my pastor encouraged me, that closeness and change are forged in the spaces of discomfort. Change can’t occur in a
TAUG
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