Darkness

(**cue theme song music**)

A long time ago…

In a galaxy far, far away…

HOLD UP!  WAIT!  TIMEOUT!  WRONG STORY (and not my own)!

My apologies.  Sometimes my nerdiness and love of pop culture get the best of me.  Let’s try a different approach.

I have stories in my head.  Lots of them actually.  I don’t know if it is carryover make- believe from my childhood or some avoidance measure I’ve yet to define in my adulthood, BUT these stories tend to represent an emotional state manifesting in my own life.

I’ve never attempted to convert them from loose ideas in my head to characterized, solid plots.  What I do know is that, given their often direct connection to where I am emotionally, simply writing the thoughts down can help release the anxiety associated.

Today’s story is about a tunnel.

It is dark, so dark.  Black actually.  And damp, cold… the kind of chill that gets deep in your bones and you just can’t quite shake.  I’m tired, so tired.  I’m walking carefully, cautious with each step, so as to not trip in the darkness.  I’m slow, full of caution, angst and fear… so slow that it often feels like I’m not even moving.

It is in this moment that I realize I’m in a tunnel… and not near the mouth at either end, but in the middle.  I’m far enough in that there is no light from behind and yet not far enough thru to see light on the opposite side.  Do you know what that is like?  I finally comprehend the full meaning behind, “light at the end of the tunnel.”  I long for it.  Hell, I’d run toward it.  I just want to come out on the other side.  In fact, I’d settle to simply see it in the distance.  I think I’d find comfort and strength from a pin prick of brightness alone at this point.

I was once told that faith is “believing in what you cannot see.”  I’m damn certain this wasn’t the example they meant, albeit applicable.  But faith is HARD.  To continue walking, no matter the pace, and trust that you aren’t going to trip and fall, bust open your head, and lie dying in the darkness a slow, lonely death… withering away with only the cold blackness around you and your thoughts.  (Okay, so that was a bit melodramatic, but the sentiment is real.)

I was sharing this tunnel analogy with a friend, someone who is familiar with darkness in her own way.  Oddly enough, I was trying to check in on her, to inquire and see how she was doing.  When unknowingly, she gives me the hope… the light (literally and figuratively)… that I was craving. She offered to me what that I needed to see… or at least to believe in.

Faith is funny that way.  I often forget how God (…or the universe, or coincidence, or whomever/whatever you might believe in) can slip in little reminders.  They are not always delivered as we ask or hope, but if you are open to them… they come all the same.

This friend said the most incredible thing to me… so simple, and yet so powerful.  She said, “Don’t forget that you aren’t alone, that you have friends with flashlights.”

Friends with FLASHLIGHTS!

And matches, and light sabers, and fiber-optic wands, and… GLOW STICKS!

So brilliant!!!!  This friend and the concept.

I have a coffee cup on my desk at work that says, “thoughts become things… choose good ones.”  That simple statement about “friends with flashlights” was all I needed to change my thinking.

Now, in complete and utter honesty—it didn’t hit me immediately.  She said it, I reflected on it, I’m writing about it now… it needed to marinate a bit.  If only the animation of the light bulb going off above your head were accurate.  Eureka!… yeah, not so much.  Unfortunately, another lesson I’ve learned in this so-called-life is that you often have to sit in the mess, to be comfortable in the discomfort.  You have to reflect on and be open to the possibilities… then some magic can happen.

You see I think we (I) try so hard to believe we (I) can do this… LIFE… alone.  We can’t.  I can’t.  And, quite frankly, it wasn’t intended that way.  But we, as humans, have a need to prove things… to prove to ourselves, to others… that we can do it alone.  It’s so silly.

I may be in a tunnel, but I’m not in the tunnel alone.  I’m surrounded by love and compassionate individuals.  But they are also loyal and respectful of my journey.  They want to give me space, encouragement, dignity and respect.  So they travel beside me… even in the darkness.  It is my job to request when they flip the switch that turns on their flashlights.

If they can be so steadfast in the darkness, surely I can be strong enough to ask for their light.