When we were little, we used to be scared of the dark. I’m not sure if this is true for all kids but I do know that it was a common fear amongst the wee ages of existence. At some point, we grew out of that fear…or did we? I have a vague recollection of the night I decided I was going to be brave enough to turn off that night light before bed and close my eyes right away so I could sleep as quickly as I could before the night-terrors crept in and consumed my tired mind awake.
That fear would soon take form as that monstrous Thing hidden in the basement as soon as you turned out the lights to go upstairs. Every child will remember the distinct feeling of something chasing you as soon as you switched off the lights in the basement. I would run as fast as I could up those stairs into the safety of the nearest light source, catching my breath as soon as I was clear of the swallow of the basement darkness.
Then you get older and real life happens…talk about fear. The darkness is no longer that Thing hidden under your bed or that Thing chasing you from the basement. The darkness — that black abyss of nothingness — then becomes some Thing inside of you. It crawls under your skin when the colder seasons hit and the skies (and days) become ominous blobs of gray. It becomes the Thing that knows just when to poison your thoughts and make you believe your worth is tied to your love-ability. At some point, the darkness is harder to differentiate from yourself, and you can’t run away this time. The darkness is life itself and you can’t stop yourself from growing up.
I say all of this because sometime this year, I realized I was facing a lot of darkness again. This time, it wasn’t the usual mental and emotional state of lows (the kind of darkness I’m all too familiar with and can now healthily cope with). This time, the darkness was intriguing, even alluring. It drew me in rather than scared me off. The darkness was an inviting kind of uncertainty that I was willing to trust because it meant I no longer needed to control every aspect of my life in order to protect myself. The uncertainty was going to show me to myself, and it was going to validate all the hard work I put in.
Little did I know, that shiny, glowy intrigue was going to wear off soon enough because on the other side of seeing my world in boundless possibilities and plentiful pathways for a hopeful future, I also had to face the predictability of my childhood conditioning. Darkness also meant terrible things can happen. That terrible things could happen. And I’d rather get a head start on running away from it now than wait for whatever terrible-ness will inevitably meet me on the other side.
The thing is, there is no running away from the darkness when the darkness is inside you. It’s inside all of us. Not because we’re terrible human beings predestined to do terrible things. But because that darkness that once chased us when we were younger is now catching up and asking us to meet her, understand her, and embrace her. That darkness is all the shadow work waiting to be seen by you.
I thought healing was this forward — however messy and ugly — movement of scrubbing ourselves clean of the traumas and pains. I thought healing would be this brave burial of childhood wounds and past triggers, and then on to the next. How foolish of me; I will always be the student of my own healing. And I didn’t realize that the shadow self is a permanent character in my life that yearns to be just as embraced as the growing, matured self.
That same distinct feeling of running up those basement steps comes back when you’re confronted with a whelm of shadow self awareness, only to see yourself as the enemy…or the victim. I thought I could transform myself entirely into someone better. I thought I could love all parts of myself. I thought I could be someone different, lovable once the broken bits were fixed. It wasn’t until there were specific situations this past year that made me ashamed of how I could be when I’m angry or jealous or anxious or self-deprecating. Those parts, unfortunately, cannot be changed or healed, or even loved, away. Those parts are just as ingrained me as the ones brave enough to be loved. I can be loved despite those parts. Do I dare to love my anger? Do I dare to listen to my envy? Do I dare to name my insecurities out loud?
In the midst of this self-reckoning, I had wrote in my journal, “I’m trying so hard not to fear the dark but I am the darkness. I am the uncertainty. I’ve been working through so much courage and strength to face the unknown but it’s me. I don’t know myself as much as I thought and it terrifies me.” And it’s precisely that terrifying feeling that leaves me puzzled and askew. How do you walk within your own body that you can barely understand?
I’m learning that trust is a lot harder to fathom than I had thought because it’s not just trusting that things will work out, it’s trusting that the uncertainty of yourself won’t swallow you whole and leave you out to dry.
The darkness can be just as illuminating as the lightness in the same way that the moon can be just as bright as the sun. The difference is, they told us to close our eyes when the sun faded and the light dimmed. But what happens when you opened them? What happens when you listen to the beautiful thoughts that dare to whisper sweet somethings before your mind slips away to slumber? What happens when you listen to the emotions that feel naked and exposed when no one is asking something of you…or rather, you’re asking something of yourself for other people? Terrible things may happen but that doesn’t make you a terrible person.
Terrible things may happen but that doesn’t mean the world wants you to be a terrible person.
My hope for this year is to walk gently and softly and daringly into the velvet of the night. I no longer wish to hide from my shadow self. I want her to exist as loudly and fervently and clumsily as the “matured” self in the heat of the dark. Even in the cool of the dark. I want my body to lead me where my eyes and mind are hesitant to clearly define. I want that lack of definitiveness to act as the soft cushion for my limbless movements to take sanctuary. We don’t have to know everything before we take that step forward. And let that be enough.
Let this nameless darkness be enough.
dared in the dark,
mai sunshine