Disappointment

One trait I seem to have been born with  is too much empathy.  This is a virtue when the people nearest to me are experiencing joy and happiness.  I feels wonderful to me to experience the good times along with them.  It becomes a curse when they are fraught with disappointment, emotional pain and depression.  This is especially true when the person I am closest to and love the most is having these feelings.  I feel them so severely that I become almost paralyzed; unable to perform any action whatever.  Frustrated with knowing there is nothing I can do to alleviate their pain.  From past experiences I know that I have to concentrate as much as possible on something else with that part of my mind still functional.  Writing helps, so I write a letter to them drawing on my own past actions and how they were overcome with something other than time.  When I get knocked down I concentrate on getting back up.  I remember once when I was a little boy getting knocked down by a schoolyard bully.  I would get up and get knocked down again.  Finally after four or five times he pleaded with me, with tears in his eyes "just stay down so I can quit;" then I got up again and he ran away crying.  He never bothered me again either.  I always try to think life is like that bully.  Just don't stop getting back up and you will always win sooner or later.  The only way life can keep me down is get death to help.  I will still put up a hell of a fight before I go down for good.  Count on that.