“It doesn’t matter how bad things get. It doesn’t matter how dark the clouds are. You have to believe, deep in your heart, that the sun is still shining, even if, right now, you can’t feel anything except the continual downpour.” ~ SSHenry
There are times in each of our lives; moments, days, months even; when we feel like giving up; when we feel that going through the motions of daily life are just too difficult and it would be easier to curl ourselves into a small ball and just wait for it all to end.
I’ve had one of those years.
The details don’t matter. Suffice it to say that a year ago something happened to me that turned my world upside down. It began with a single event and cascaded (as single events tend to do) into a thundering waterfall of circumstances that swept away nearly every aspect of who and what I was.
If you don’t believe me, go ahead and look at the dates on my writing here on the website. You’ll notice that since a year ago the entries became fewer and farther between. There would be months between entries. That is because I was spending every last ounce of energy keeping my head above water; trying desperately not to drown in my own tears.
I was left clinging tenaciously to one thing and, oddly enough, it wasn’t someone or something outside of myself that I found myself clinging to. It was an inner knowing; an understanding that even though it felt as if all of my insides had been torn out through my chest and kicked about by people in very dirty and heavy work boots before being randomly stuffed back in, it was going to be ok.
Somewhere deep inside I knew that even though it felt as if things would never get better, that this was just one of life’s weird twists. It wasn’t the end. It was more like the square on the Shute’s and Ladders board where you plummet back to nearly the beginning before picking yourself up and beginning the climb all over again.
Mind you, that didn’t make it any easier to handle. That didn’t make the days any easier to face. What it did was enable me to use my meditation and mindfulness skills to focus on the right here and now, as painful as it was; on getting through today. Not looking towards tomorrow. Not planning for the future; just on getting through the day; through the morning; through the next hour. I survived moment by moment until the hole in my heart scabbed over and reduced itself to an aching throb.
And after nearly a year’s worth of mornings where the alarm would go off and I would groan in disappointment at finding myself still alive and at the prospect of having to deal with yet another pointless and meaningless day; after nearly a year’s worth of days finding myself bursting into tears for no particular reason; one morning I surprised myself by waking up with a smile in my heart. I could feel the sun again, and see colors.
Sure enough, when I checked the scab that had covered the hole where my insides were torn out had finally fallen off, leaving new pink skin underneath. Mind you, it’s still very, very tender, and painful when exposed to the air or vigorous rubbing. But it’s whole. And I can feel my insides carefully rearranging themselves. I think there may be a few pieces missing, for there certainly seems to be an emptiness inside that wasn’t there before.
Or maybe there is nothing missing. Maybe during this last year, while I was focusing on getting through the day; maybe I grew. Maybe it is not that there is something missing. Maybe instead it is that there is now room inside of me; room for more; more of everything.
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