It's nearly the end of December, and it's snowy outside. My world this week - peacefully blanketed in white - reminded me of this moment from the past. I thought it might be an encouraging one to share. So here goes...
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There are moments of calm in every storm. This is a fact. Sometimes there are many moments, depending on the during of the storm.
I can see these moments SO clearly. No matter how long it's been, they rise to the top. They're unforgettable little clues, pointing me into to the center of my own truth and joy. In the midst of my worst emotional storms, they've shown me what brings me towards (or away) from myself.
One of the more vivid examples I have involves the twelve-year-old me, and a December ice storm.
Ice storms are something I experienced only after moving to Ontario, and they're incredibly beautiful, extremely dangerous winter events. When an ice storm is finished and the wind has passed, the entire city - every road, every railing, every bitsy blade of grass - is coated in a glistening layer of ice. You wake up to a slippery, unsafe, gorgeous, glittering world.
The night of this particular ice storm, Mom and myself were watching a movie. It was nearing midnight, the movie had ended, and Mom was fast asleep on the couch. I, on the other hand, was wide awake, and listening to the wind whistle outside our living room windows.
I was wide awake, and feeling a whole bunch of things. I was desperately sad, incredibly anxious, and working my way through a whole bunch of sticky-adolescent/growing up things.
Mostly though, I was feeling sad, and finally alone. All was quiet, (except for the wind) and I wanted to cry.
Crying, for me, has always been something to be done away from the prying eyes of anyone who may try to comfort me.
For some reason, comforters have always made me feel... angry, frustrated, misunderstood.
I've been thinking about why that is, and I think it's because of this:
When I'm at the point of tears, when my body is literally pushing the sadness out through my eyeballs.... I don't want to feel better, I don't want to feel encouraged. In that moment, I am being forced to feel my sadness, to literally feel it roll it's way down my cheeks, hot and wet...It's obviously something that needs to happen, so I say, let it happen!
Afterwards, when I've felt it, and collected myself a bit, then I may need the comfort and encouragement, the hugs, and the giggles...but not during. During, all I need to is to sit alone, or have someone who will sit with me, and not try to fix it.
But I digress.
When I feel like crying, I almost always also feel like moving, like going. But when you're twelve, there aren't many places to go. So, that night, I went outside. I went and sat - in my PJs, and my momma's big green Michelin man coat and matching boats - at the end of our driveway.
My back was up against the bumper of our family's SUV, and there was snow flying everywhere. Just everywhere!
I sat looking up into the blaze of frantic white specs against the black night, highlighted by the street lamp in front of the house. As I was looking at this crazy mess of snow... the direction of the wind shifted, and the flakes began to calm down. It almost looked like they were dancing.
It was something like a twirling funnel; a galaxy; a glorious miniature Milkyway. It was a black hole, it was infinite, and watching it felt an awful lot like happiness.
I became enveloped by the funnel of snowflakes, and just like that, another world opened up inside me, and around me. The flurry was changing direction as a unit, like a whole person, it was dancing across the sky. In that moment, I was able to see beyond my problems/anxieties/small reality - and experience an entirely new set of feelings; feelings like WONDER, & JOY.
The thing I want to stress here, is that while I was experiencing this joyfulness, at the very same time, I was still deep within my own pain. My pain had moved over a bit, and taken on a cozy sort of sensation inside my chest, but it was still there. As the snow created a peaceful new world around me, pain & joy were mixing together inside me, like cement.
I stayed outside that night, watching this dance (wanting so badly to share it with someone, & to keep it all to myself at the same time) in the freezing cold, for nearly an hour.
When I went inside that night, I felt alive. I felt filled up, I felt possibility; I felt the bigness of life. I felt something past my anxieties... Something a few more steps down the path.
I would not reach this place, this peace, again, for many years. I was still very much in the early stages of that storm... BUT I had seen it, felt it, tasted it, and I knew that it existed.
That would be enough to carry me through.
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"All you have to do, is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." - Ernest Hemmingway
Until next week,
xo.
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