Asters & Dandelions

Dear Darkness,

I know you’re considered a four letter word. People loathe to admit that you exist within them and they try every gimmick, crystal, and combination of government regulated tic-tacs to rid themselves of you. Find comfort in knowing that, in my eyes, the only thing worse than denying that one has darkness within them, is living a half truth everyday to the rest of the world. How heavy the weight must be carrying around a constantly nagging self who is simply tired of being the character you choose to play. I promise that I will forever own my light moments and my dark moments with the same amount of strength.

The truth is, my accomplishments are not what define me but rather all of the countless times I have been intimately intwined with you. You my friend, are like sinking into my mind with a rock tied to me. How would I ever know myself as well as I do if I didn’t have you to submerge me into the deepest corners of my loneliest thoughts? I know who I am through you. I am grateful for every crack and tear you’ve caused within me because without all of the things that left me broken, how would the light get in?

You are like a thick blanket on a cold night. Yes, I often wake up too soon, sticky from my own sweat, unable to fall back asleep but at the time, you were needed and I am thankful. You are like an eclipse that never seems to move to let the sun in and that is how I have grown so comfortable walking into the darkness. I don’t thrive in the sun but instead in the dark depths of days spent in bed, feeling guilty for things I can’t even remember if I did.

To get lost in darkness is to grow completely comfortable spending time alone with yourself. During these endless meetings with myself, I have learned all the things that drive me, the things that leave me defeated, the things I long for, and the things I dread. So many people spend their lives, searching for another person, as to not be alone in the room. But those of us who befriend their darkness? We prefer it. There is a level of freedom that comes from knowing that you will never dissolve into the identity of those people who surround you. There is first the acceptance that you are different, then there is the confidence when you decide that you do not have the energy to invest in caring.

“The only way out is through”

This quote has carried me through many phases of life. You will never find me with my arms outstretched, desperately reaching for someone to pull me out of the trenches. I learned very early into my intimate relationship with you, my darkness, to always reach within. You may be the reason why I crave solitude but you are also the reason why I thrive in it. To know everything I require I can also provide is a gift worth receiving.

You have never been one to finesse or gently make your presence known, like the sun rising calm as the morning blooms. As a reflection of you, neither have I. Just as I am getting used to the heat from the sun across my life, there you are. Never a summer thunderstorm appearing; soft clouds slowly rolling across the skyline but rather a light switch. I am in the light until I am not. And just as you have taught me, I too convey my presence without a concern for subtleties. I may be abrasive and I am rarely the ray of comfort in a room but just as you are, I am unapologetically myself.

Even as you consume my life without warning, you are not an experience that requires words, and therefore, neither am I. I am just a being, who could fill a room with sweet niceties that would make the world fall in love with me but what is the worthiness if I walk out of the room drained of all the things that make me who I am? I know you better than I know my husband, my best friends, the back way home after a long day of work, the sound of my children as they stir in the morning. I know you better because I have known you far longer. Yet you’ve never said a word to me. Only created and inspired my own thought processes. Just your presence sparks reimagining of events, truths, and definites. Just as I am trying to every time I reach deep into the holes you’ve helped me dig that riddle my own composition. Digging up all of my old graves in an attempt to transcend you. Because maybe, if I’m able to paint a map of scattered thoughts created with crude brush strokes of interpretations through all of my experiences, I can one day see the image of who I am without our beautiful, crippling, intimate, comforting, codependent love story.