The Face of Pain — May Self-Portrait

Trying to give form to what we rarely dare to speak.

I must admit: this week I have more questions than answers.
I finished reading A Little Life, and it pierced through my entire being. Though I haven’t lived the life of the protagonist, we share certain fears, certain kinds of pain. It left me breathless, weakened, with the aches I already carry now sharper than usual.

This is not a post to recommend the book—perhaps it’s quite the opposite. Personally, I tend to love sad stories. But this one overwhelmed me. I cried on the train on my way to French class. I cried in my bed at night before falling asleep. It’s the saddest story I’ve ever read.

It made me reflect on pain—both physical and emotional. I’ve experienced both in many ways. I’ve cried from loss, from absence, from rejection. But I’ve also cried because of the intense pain my body endures. I’ve had to live with pain for decades.

Sometimes I wonder if I prefer physical pain over emotional pain. I don’t know. Pain is part of being human. It’s inevitable. It belongs to life, even if we find it hard to talk about it, to share it like we share joy or celebration.

I find a certain fascination in pain—not in a masochistic way, but as a way to connect with my most human nature. I like to believe that, at the moment we leave the body behind, pain disappears. For now, it feels like a kind of language we carry in this human experience.

But pain that isn’t expressed, that gets stored and repressed, ends up making us sick. Sometimes it even causes us to hurt others. That’s why I believe we need to find ways to give it shape, to give it a voice.

This month, my self-portrait is born out of that urgency.

Because portraying pain is not easy. It’s subjective. Each of us lives it so differently. I’m often surprised by the amount of pain some people can endure. We talk about pain thresholds—and if I had to place mine on a scale from 1 to 10, I think I can handle more than I would like. But I am not unbreakable. Somehow, we must seek relief.

Because portraying pain is not easy. It’s subjective. Each of us lives it so differently. I’m often surprised by the amount of pain some people can endure. We talk about pain thresholds—and if I had to place mine on a scale from 1 to 10, I think I can handle more than I would like. But I am not unbreakable. Somehow, we must seek relief.

This self-portrait for May is an attempt to look pain in the eye. Not to romanticize it, but to acknowledge it and, hopefully, transform it. Because there is beauty even in the wound that begins to heal.

Thank you for reading,
Thank you for being here.
Ana María