Into the Light

Sometimes the noise in my head gets so loud, when I can’t sleep, that I must sit down and write.
6:24am on 1/1/20, this is where we are.

It’s been a rough few days.
There was a major ice and snow storm in upstate NY that left me and my family with on and off power for the better part of 2 days. We thought we were through the woods when the power came back on New Years Eve Day at 11:45 am and I began planning a little get together with my neighbors. At 4:45pm, the lights in my house went dim – yet again. My Christmas tree lights were flickering and I knew we were going into another dark spell.
I hit the main breaker, killed all the lights to avoid any surges, and lit a few more candles.
My husband was heading home from a long day at work, picking up my daughters on his way.
I was alone with my cat and 2 dogs.
I was again, in the dark.

I sat down in my husbands big comfy recliner, covered with a heavy blanket, closed my eyes. I needed to be in the dark. Something kept telling me it was okay to be having this outage, again. I stopped battling it and let my eyes close. I felt warm, comfortable under the heavy blanket, almost like I was being rocked to sleep, to rest my rattled mind. I stopped resisting.

I asked myself what was actually happening.
Why was I in the dark again?
Literally… sure… but more so symbolically?
What happened to my power?

I have felt my own internal power surging and depleting for a long time. When it’s on and active, I know it and feel it and gladly work with it. But when it’s off… it’s a struggle to survive. I have had dark questions in my mind that I can’t see the answer to. I have been living on and off in the dark, and the light, with candles, or open and bright and clear for a long time and I finally began to understand this while sitting in the darkness last night.

I said a prayer for the coming New Year, the new decade…

God,
Help me restore my power. Please, help me see through the dark. Please help the light come and lift me. Help me remember how to use my own lightness… and embrace my powerful self. Please help me shed light on my uncertainties, on my family’s uncertainties. Help us walk into a new light, together, empowered.

11:45 pm on 12/31/19.
My husband lay in bed sleeping soundly, snoring softly… next to me.
I kissed him goodnight, “I”ll see you next year” I whispered into his ear.
I click off the flashlight on the nightstand.

I look around me and the darkness is strong. It is everywhere. Earlier in the evening I tried to explain dark to my little girls. We joked about shadows and the more I explained to them, the more I see for myself.
Darkness is only absence of light. Light brings us clarity. It brings us hope. There are many things I can do in my house with flickering lights, but there is something halting about being in the darkness, being without power.
The same sensation maybe, that I feel when I’ve lost my way. When I’m not myself… when I’m scared of the shadows, the fear, the doubt, is all just an absence of light.

Light is love.

I’m okay.
We may not have full power back, but our house is full of love.
My children are snuggled up on their bottom bunk, under infinite blankets and stuffed animals sleeping soundly. My husband (of 10 years, this year!) my love, is sleeping and my heart is at peace.

At 11:47pm the house made a loud beep as all my appliances turned on, and the lamp on my nightstand clicked back to life.
I sat in bed smiling, only 1/3 of the way to sleep.

13 minutes before the New Year, and already we’re moving into more light and more power.

I realize through the exhaustion of the last few days how I want to live. I don’t see these surges, dark periods and power outages as anything bad. I see them as a prompt to find light. I took the time to be still finally, to stop boycotting the darkness and to sit in it. I realized that they are only shadows that I’m afraid of… and shadows aren’t real. I see, even in the darkness, I see.
Here’s to a beautiful New Year, and a decade walking out into the light.

-Sarah