Maddox K. Pennington

When I was 3, I split my chin open jumping on a coffee table made from the trunk of a tree, sawed expertly in half by my grandfather. I got stitches, and then ice cream. 

Sometime later, but not too long, I cut a gash in the front of my ankle. My mother was afraid of my father’s mother and so I did not get stitches, I got three bandaids that barely covered the injury, and later a soft raised keloid scar that flattened and shifted rightward as I grew up. 

Now that I think about it, maybe these happened in the opposite order–my mother learned from the ankle gash and the scar not to lose the fight about stitches.

In first grade I split my chin open again, ice skating. Stitches. Third grade, jammed my ring finger playing basketball and it turned mottled blueberry with bruising. In 6th grade I sliced my thumb open with a pocket knife. Stitches and a splint and a dramatic scene at the front desk of the pool, where I went for help, too shocked to cry. In 7th grade, I fractured an unlikely bone in my foot jumping down the stairs into the family room. I walked around on it for a day before admitting defeat and wept over the cast, which represented losing six weeks of summer at the pool. 

In 2016 I fractured that foot again, in a different spot, two different spots actually, and scooted around Manhattan on a “knee walker”. I eventually came to find a kind of power in admitting that it hurt, because being hurt means you’re “allowed” to seek rest and relief, and by then I needed rest more than I needed six weeks at the pool.

Somewhere amidst those childhood ER visits, after bickering with my little brother, I remember my father saying “You have maybe the highest pain tolerance of anyone I know–why do you overreact when your brother does something we all know can’t hurt that badly?” 

This is a complicated statement. 

It was most likely in response to a dramatic “OWWWWW,” emitted more to get my brother in trouble than to express an instinctual pain response. It’s a bit rich coming from a man who raises his voice and sharpens his tone whenever he loses his temper, whether the person he’s mad at is in the room or not. 

But I keep coming back to what he said, now that pain comes in so many forms. It’s not pain if it’s pleasurable, argues Eula Biss in “The Pain Scale.” The brain has to interpret a sensation (neutral) as unpleasant (pain). Today I ordered one of those accupressure mats, upon which I hope to experience minor pain to earn the endorphins of relief. It may feel like a bed of nails but I probably won’t holler “oww” when I lay down on it. I will probably just breathe. 

Most likely, my dad was tired of listening to us. His admonishment probably also came with instructions for my brother to leave me alone. But where is it set down that our expression of pain must be proportional to the pain we experience? I’m not talking about a doctor’s office–treatment has to understand pain in context. But does parenting? 

I’m thinking of this now because my father is one of the only people who still consistently misgenders me to my face. “She” he says, and “her” and [Old name]…Maddox,” emphasis added because he knows and “don’t give me that look I’m fixing it”. 

If I react to the she, the her, the general vibe is one of “cut your old man some slack.” Surely it can’t hurt that much. Surely it’s easier for you to manage this pain–and really would we even call it pain–than to cause your father the pain of being corrected by his offspring, whose hand he held so affectionately, whose body he carried on his shoulders even after she-he-they were too big for it. Your pain tolerance is higher than maybe anyone he knows. So why are you saying ouch. 

On Monday, my dad, my brother and I all went to donate blood. Happy to be of service amidst *gestures* all this. My dad’s veins are delicate and evasive, and he had forgotten to drink water–did I mention he’s been a vegetarian for almost a decade now–so he couldn’t donate. My brother was apparently running a temperature–or was it just the weird disposable paper thermometers they were using–and so couldn’t donate. He slipped snacks into his pocket anyway and went to wait in the hall; shyness has never been his burden. 

In the past, sometimes my blood pressure was too low, or I tested as borderline anemic. I stayed calm, I took deep breaths, I squeezed and rotated the stress ball as instructed. Testosterone is good for your hemoglobin and so my veins popped up readily. Is my success perhaps because I have been treating my pain–slapping on testosterone patches every day, scrubbing the sticky residue off at night, taking anti-depressants and anxiety meds, getting lots of sleep?

In high school when I donated blood I was giddy after; in college, I was solemn and a little faint. In my twenties I felt hypersensitive about the needles and made hissing grimaces while the phlebotomist inserted the needle and made sure blood had begun to flow. On Monday, 34 and resilient, I ate my oatmeal pie and mini Keebler M&M cookies with a sense of heroism and pride. Not only am I a universal donor, I am the center of the family donation galaxy. I thanked my dad and my brother for driving me to my appointment, and mocked their ineffectual gesture at saving lives.

Today is the 50th day of social distancing. Some weekends, I went to my family’s house to stave off the Isolation Sads. But now that I feel steadier–creative projects finally flowing, the semester almost over–I don’t go as often. As a fourth, I balance a triad of competing personalities, a steadying table leg. Sometimes that’s comforting–there’s a role waiting for me to step into at the piano, at the dinner table, on the couch managing the remote. Other times it feels like an endurance event I’m out of training for. I have to keep stiff, flexed, unresponsive to avoid making waves when what everybody else needs is to relax. 

It hurts. 

I don’t try to explain any of this when I beg off coming for a visit. I blame schoolwork, housekeeping, allergies.  

Yesterday while I was walking Roxy, umbrella in leash hand, she stopped sharply, making me smack my head with the umbrella. I reacted with heat, yanking the leash and scolding her. I didn’t snap at her with the momentum of how much it hurt (not that much), but with the force of my surprise and irritation. She’d been dawdling for the better part of two blocks, irritated that we weren’t staying out longer to walk in the drizzle. In response she looked at me petulantly and hurried ahead. For my part, I paid more attention to her stops and starts, so neither of us got jerked around unduly for the rest of the walk. 

It made me think all this about pain, and how I can’t express what I haven’t learned. Is this one of those rare scenarios where distance learning is actually more effective than the in-person kind? 

I can build my tolerance, or decrease my exposure to pain. 

With enough space, nobody has to hear you say “OWWWWW”.