You need to stop internalizing other people’s pain, my mother tells me on the phone. It’s not healthy. She is right; I have done this all of my life. Like an overused sponge, I soak up all the sadness around me, feel it as if it were my own, and expect it not to seep into my own life. Don’t be blinded by your own light, she cautions. And don’t get hurt by pain that doesn’t belong to you. But if I’m not pained by their pain, I have not earned the right to be overjoyed by their joy.
This.
