Dark Days
Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels
At 5:00 am, when the alarm goes off to give Violet her blood pressure medications, the sun is already announcing morning through the curtains. Subtle, but enough to remind me that I don’t have that long to go back to sleep, if I even can. Each morning I remember the “baby years” – breastfeeding through the night, knowing that falling back asleep before the next feed was an unlikely endeavor.
If only I knew how little sleep I would get once I had children. Truly.
Today the sun is bright again. Beautiful blue sky. The patio off our room at the Ronald McDonald House facing East, and the morning light beams through the glass railing, making it almost too glaring to enjoy. You need sunglasses with your morning coffee.
Today, especially. My eyes are dry and raw and tender. And so is my heart.
A dark day, despite the light.
Contrast. The duality of things.
I’ve been keeping up positive momentum, constantly coming back around to a place of grace and acceptance. Yes, bad moments. Yes, frustration and fear. And I’ve owned them – those difficult emotions. They are a part of this, and I’ve acknowledged that all along.
But dark days like this are tough to find space for, and to share with anyone else.
Lonely days, where the violent, silent battle within begins to scream out and scratch its way to the surface. Days when you realize that no one ever can really understand what your own unique experience is – what your struggles are – despite their best intentions. Days when you have to come to terms with that reality we all share - no one can truly understand us.
There’s so much surfacing today that it feels overwhelming. Tension has seeped out here and there throughout the past couple of months, but the levee feels like it’s given way today. Resentment is a big one. A warning bell. Be careful, Shawna. That’s an ugly one, and resentment flooding the plain is like poison in the soil. It’s gets into the groundwater.
It’s important to be honest with oneself. I’m undoubtably a believer that attitude is everything. And that, ultimately, we have control over that. Happiness is a choice. Gratitude. Love. Where you put your attention, energy flows. And there are opportunities everywhere to pay attention to the light.
But there is also a duality to things. Light and dark. And one cannot exist without the other.
Today I want to run, or hide, or scream, or break things. I want to pull out all of my hair, and throw everything out the window, and maybe even myself. Just enough to knock myself unconscious for awhile. To get off the hook for a bit. To take a time out.
Instead, I take my drama to the bathroom, and cry. Loud, ugly tears that can’t keep up the decorum. The bathroom door makes it ok. It’s a barrier, and it’s the best one I’ve got. The only privacy possible in this crazy situation. It may not stop the sound from carrying, but it’s enough to send the message that Mommy doesn’t want to be disturbed.
Anger is an emotion we tend to dismiss as destructive – something to be avoided. It’s an emotion that carries with it judgment and blame, and seems to suggest an evasion of accountability. But anger can be empowering. When the chips are down, and things feel hopeless, anger is a way of taking back the reins. It is an acknowledgement that a desire isn’t being met, but also an admission that there is desire there to begin with. Anger means you haven’t given up. There’s fire – an appetite for something else. Something better.
Anger can be a light, too, when things get really dark. Because it’s all relative. If the sun is shining, a torch does very little. But in the inky black of night, it can illuminate the way.
And illuminating it has been, without question. Today, I am sitting with my anger. I am getting curious about it, comfortable with it. I listen to what it has to say. And its shared insights with me I haven’t taken the time to recognize, or wanted to. This journey continues to unfold and evolve me, showing me new things about life, and about myself. And it isn’t always pretty. True wisdom never is.
Today I am facing some ugly truths – about myself, about the world, about the things we choose not to admit to ourselves that challenge our status quo. When the ground from beneath you is shaken as hard as mine has been, it’s tough to keep holding on to the things you once did. When things around you change so drastically, you have to change with it - the way you look at yourself.
Today is a dark day, but I recognize that it is darkest before the dawn. The sunrise is already breaking. Truths are surfacing - anger is empowering, if you let it lift you upward. Resentment is a key to unlocking doors to new strategies to take better care of ourselves. And no – no one will ever truly understand you. But if you let go of the need for them to, you are free to be whoever you want to be without the need for validation.
These are simple truths that manifest in complicated ways in our lives. But the beauty of dark days is that the need for simplicity becomes paramount. The complicated ways we twist ourselves in knots become too much to tackle. In the dark, the light is focused and deliberate. We use the torch to light the path, not scenery around us. Not the things that don’t matter. Not the things that distract us from the truth.
Today I embrace the darkness, and wait for the sun to rise again.