#12 Was the High Worth the Pain?
An inquiry into the famous Swiftie question
Good morning!
It is Valentine’s week, so I thought it was about time to circle back to this draft I’ve had for ages. Yes, it is about love—specifically, the part where it gets messy and hard and you’re just curled up in a ball wishing it all just didn’t happen. Lol. I promise this isn’t as bleak as it sounds!
In case the title doesn’t ring a bell, here’s the reference (or listen to it on Spotify):
I’ll begin by telling you how this one ends: I realize that I’ve been asking the wrong question.
But let’s take it from the start, shall we?
“If you knew things were going to end the way they did, would you still have let yourself go through everything?
That was the thought experiment posed to three friends experiencing fresh heartbreak: one had been cheated on, the other was led on dramatically and then left hanging, and the last was enjoying a blooming romance until the other party’s baggage—a complicated ex… and their child—caught up to him.
I brought up the Swiftie question because I thought, wasn’t that essentially what we were trying to pin down? If the high was worth the pain? If the good memories—the excitement, the intimacy, the shared experiences—compensate for the bad parts and the bad ending?
Naturally, I theorized, the answer to both questions should align. If, no, the high was clearly not worth the pain, then why would you subject yourself to it?
Even then, I think most of us would like to be able to say yes to this question. I know I did. For one, it sounds like the noble and mature thing. It’s the answer that honors the relationship and doesn’t devalue the joy granted to you by the other person. What’s that saying? It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? (We’ll revisit this later.)
Another reason, perhaps, is pride—not the kind borne of arrogance, but of something that resembles contentment. The ability to look back at that phase of your life and say, “Many good things happened, too. And they do count just as much as the bad.”
Since that night my friends and I asked ourselves these questions, I’ve learned a few peculiar things. In my research, I came across this blogger who was clearly still reeling from a relationship that, as Taylor sang, went down in flames. “I feel sadness 500% more than I ever feel happiness,” she wrote.
Apparently, when it comes to our biology, that’s really just how it is.
Many studies have suggested that we’re more likely to remember negative things more potently and more vividly than positive things. I’ll have to be a bit science-y here, but based on this article, this is it in a nutshell: Negative events release stress hormones into our amygdala, which is that part of our brain that mediates the processing of memory and emotional responses. When something bad or painful or stressful happens, “the amygdala is strongly activated and sends strong emotion-oriented signals to the hippocampus.” The overall effect?
“Pronounced recollection of the negative incident both in terms of memory and emotion.”
So it seems, biologically-speaking, the answer to the Swiftie question has always been rigged towards no. When we feel we’ve been wronged, cheated on, or mistreated, and we can’t help but mostly recall the bad, that’s just us being humans. I find that strangely comforting.
Now, back to heartbroken blogger girl. She also said, “Whoever came up with the phrase ‘it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’ clearly knew nothing, as far as I am concerned.”
Nothing? Hmm.
The line comes from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s elegy called In Memoriam A.H.H.
A.H.H. stands for Arthur Henry Hallum. More than being one of Tennyson’s closest friends, Hallum was “the source of artistic inspiration and literary confidence upon which the budding poet relied.” He died suddenly at the age of 22 of a cerebral hemorrhage. This shattered Tennyson, inflicting immense grief that altered his life and, consequently, his art. It took him seventeen years—seventeen!—to contemplate and finish this elegy.
I first attempted to write this piece seven months ago, when I had barely licked my wounds from being swept off my feet and whisked towards fantasy land and then very, very shortly—left hanging. (To quote my friend when I asked him to weigh in if my high was worth my pain, “The rise was so fast, but the fall was even faster.”) Today, the unfinished draft remains in my Medium stories. It looks nothing like the piece you’re reading now; it was 3,000 words that talked a whole lot about myself, forcing out some sliver of sense out of all of it, but don’t seem to go anywhere. Mostly I think I was pushing hard to arrive at the righteous conclusion that the high was worth the pain.
Frankly, it wasn’t worth it then, and seven months later, it still isn’t. What a relief to be able to say that out loud.
Pain, author Melissa Febos once write, “can narrow perspective to a pinprick.” I guess that’s why seven months prior I was thinking about things all wrong. But in turning to others and listening to their the-high-was-not-worth-the-pain stories—priceless answers that I've shared below—, I was reminded of what I couldn’t see in the thick of hurt and anger and sadness: Many things can make the pain worth it—perhaps least of them all is the high.
Doomed as we are to feel pain 500% more than the high, we can lean into this: the human capacity to adapt painful memories (I won’t delve into the psychology of this, but here’s the research). It isn’t about changing what we remember, but allowing new insight to surface. I think we can call that wisdom.
Obviously, we would all rather become wiser without suffering. But would Tennyson have been able to give us the most Pinterest-able/Etsy-able quote of all time without it? Would he have been able to eloquently phrase his inexplicable yet profound revelation that love, in itself, is and will always be a privilege?
All throughout this heartbreak season, my recurring thought has been: “I had nothing to gain from this.” Nothing at all to learn. But I don’t think that’s true anymore.
I have a few theories on what I stood to gain from this—on what makes the pain worth the pain. Maybe I’ll write about it in another seven months. Or in seventeen years. But until then, let me leave you with some answers to the Swiftie question, care of three beautiful, wise, strong friends who saw immense pain, and then saw that pain again—now shrouded by newfound understanding.
Paula married Rick in her early 20s. They got pregnant soon after that, and today they have two beautiful kids.
Then, over the pandemic, they separated.
“It was a long-time coming,” Paula admitted, which came as a shock because it always seemed to me that they were cruising along steadily. But it turns out, over the years, Rick had become an alcoholic, negligent father. He’d act out at home in ways that frightened their children. Raised voices, missed commitments, a child’s arm grabbed too violently. Being afforded more time and headspace during the quarantine, Paula finally had enough. He asked Rick to pack up and leave.
Was the high worth the pain?
“If it weren’t for the kids, no.”
This wasn’t only a long-time coming, but a long-time realizing. Looking back, she now understood that she stayed and committed to making things work—partly out of pride. She had always been a fighter, but now she wished, “Why did no one punch me in the face sooner?”
Kat was to be married in 2021 to her first and long-distance boyfriend of five years. As with most engaged couples at the time, their wedding was postponed indefinitely because of Covid.
But Kat’s wedding never pulled through. She called off the engagement near the end of 2020.
Was the high worth the pain?
“For me, I think the better quote would be that the learning was worth the pain.”
“Cause, sadly, when I look back on the relationship, top-of-mind memories are the fights.”
As she recalled, not a time they spent physically together passed that they didn’t have a heated argument. Efforts to make her presence felt despite being ten thousand miles away would be misunderstood or seen as a nuisance. She thought she just had to be more patient, and that their dynamics would improve. But as she realized, “you’re not supposed to love a person for his potential, but for who he is, as he is now.”
“More than anything, the relationship taught me to recognize a red flag when I see one—no such thing as a pink flag. Knowing my real non-negotiables. And again, [realizing that] love is not always easy, but it’s not supposed to be THAT hard.”
Three years into their marriage, Joy’s husband cheated on her. She left him and came home.
Was the high worth the pain?
“What I had with Norman was amazing until it lasted. When I look back, I recall fun and fond memories. It wasn’t like it was seven years of torture. Things just didn’t work out in the end, and that’s okay. Did it hurt? Hell, yeah. But I didn’t walk away with nothing. We should never waste our pain. There’s always a gift waiting for us when we experience hurt and disappointment. Clarity is one of them.”
Six years later, she unexpectedly lost her best friend—her mom. And if there’s anyone I know who might understand Tennyson’s grief, it would be Joy.
“In exchange for the pain of not spending the rest of my life with the man I chose to marry, I was given the beautiful opportunity to spend the best days of my life with my mom. To heal my heart, find myself, and get back on my feet with my favorite person in the world was the best consolation for my being.
Sometimes, sanctuary is not a place, but a person. Mom was my sanctuary. She will always be.”
PS. It is also my birthday week. :) If you liked this or any of the previous editions or my newsletter in general, do you mind sharing it with at least one other person? It would really make my birthday. ♡ As always, I’m truly thankful for your support!