Pain was the first language I learned. Before I understood names, before I recognized faces, my body already knew how to ache. I entered the world not with a cry of hope, but with tears heavy enough to speak for me. I had no words then—only the quiet understanding that life would not be gentle.
As a child, I watched others laugh freely, as if joy were something handed out at birth. For me, happiness felt borrowed, temporary, something I had to earn and repay with interest. Every smile carried the weight of what I had survived to reach it. Every silence echoed with questions I was too afraid to ask.
I learned early how to be strong, not because I wanted to be, but because weakness was never an option. When pain becomes familiar, it turns into a companion—unwanted, yet constant. It follows you through sleepless nights and long days, whispering doubts when the world expects confidence. And still, I endured, even when endurance felt like another form of suffering.
There were moments I wanted to scream, to explain the heaviness in my chest, but the words never came out right. How do you describe a hurt that has always existed? How do you explain grief without a beginning? So instead, I stayed quiet. I let my tears do the talking. They fell when no one was looking, carrying stories I couldn’t speak aloud.
Yet somewhere between the pain and the silence, I discovered something unexpected: resilience. Not the loud, fearless kind, but the quiet kind—the kind that wakes up every day despite exhaustion, the kind that survives even when hope feels distant. I realized that being born into pain did not mean I was destined to remain there.
My tears were not signs of weakness; they were proof that I felt deeply, that I survived deeply. And slowly, I began to find words. Not perfect ones, not loud ones—but honest ones. Words shaped by suffering, softened by empathy, and strengthened by survival.
I may have been born into pain, but I am learning to live beyond it. And though tears were once my only language, they no longer define the end of my story.
