Is Pain A Consequence Of Age?

Is anyone ever too old for heartaches?

I'm posing this question after a friend confided that she's had enough. I'm not at liberty to discuss the details here but suffice it to say that she's broken up with her beau. But you know how break-ups go.

"After this relationship, 'yoko na. I'm thirty already, I should be thinking about kids. Pang-twenty-somethings lang ang mga heartaches," she says.

The question is significant to me since I've broken up with my bf some five months ago (or so I think. I refuse to count.) and I had told a friend once too, that I wished hearts are like light bulbs that we can just turn on and off. Or an XDA, once it crashes it can no longer recall anything.

But let's break it down.

Again, is anyone ever too old for heartaches?

Affirmative Positions

1. Yes. Pain, or experiencing pain, is a rite of passage. You undergo that to learn the lessons of life. The rite of passage is for the young. When you're old already, you're supposed to have learned your lessons and there's no more room for mistakes. You're supposed to know better. You can decide wiser.

2. People get tired. There's a point of exhaustion where you can no longer feel anything, there's a certain numbness, a little disinterest in all these shit. Been there, done that.

3. Love, which is the common source of pain, is the past time of the young. When you're old, you should be bothering about career, family (immediate, in the absence of a family of your own), and world domination (or salvation, depending on your priorities and values). Wallowing over love seems to be a pretty mundane preoccupation.

4. Crying, which is a manifestation of pain (a generalization, of course), is silly sometimes. Didn't you feel stupid when you cried the night out alone in your bedroom when your significant other, or ex-significant other, is enjoying the time of his life with his new found love?

Negative Positions

1. Learning is a life-long process, therefore, there are no specific points in life where you can say, I should have learned this or that. There are no experiences specific to a certain period say, these experiences are for 10 year olds, or these for the elderly. Life circumstances are like the road network in Metro Manila, the street you are in right now is pure serendipity/pure fate. The next person may not pass by that street.

2. Without the trials, how can we be stronger to face other challenges?

3. People get tired, yes, but isn't life more colorful?

The long and short of it, I guess, is that there is no answer.

Forrest Gump once said: "Life is a box of chocolates, you'll never know what you're gonna get."

Sometimes, you don't even know why you got it.