Is it wrong to say I love sufferings?
On my bedroom wall, there is a handwritten wording of “I love sufferings” on a piece of A4 paper. I wish I could pour my heart out and share with you all that I have suffered, but it would defeat the purpose of this article, and truthfully, it would feel too heavy, too depressing. As a queer cancer survivor now living with the disability of not being able to eat through my mouth due to aspiration, and as someone who has walked through losses, grief, bullying, and discrimination with one tragedy I still cannot bring myself to share, I carry enough reasons to say why I love suffering. No one is immune from suffering. In Chinese, there is an old idiom that says the best way to deal with your enemies is to befriend them. I see harmful thoughts and painful memories in the same way. If I fight them, they fight back. But if I befriend them, I begin to understand them, and in that understanding, their power over me fades. I love it because it is honest. It never pretends. It is life’s w...
