my darkness

My darkness showed its true face to me in college. It reached a depth I never knew it had, or rather, that I had.

I had always felt its stirrings from a young age. Its painful, disorienting echoes that would arise during the dark winter months, during times I felt the greatest distance from my family in Colombia.

After much reflection and therapy, I have come to realize that my darkness, that deep melancholy and sadness, is an indicator of the depth of my feeling, my capacity for love. Your darkness is only as deep as your capacity for love is. The deeper and darker you can drop, the greater and lighter you can feel.

I learned this beautiful lesson, and continue to, every time I feel a familiar wave of melancholy, of hollowness. I try as hard as I possibly can to see this darkness with warmth, as a familiar friend, as me. It is much effort to do so, because the darkness can generate such fear.

That is what makes the darkness so terrible, not the darkness alone but the ripples of terror it creates.

The pit of darkness I reached in college was utterly terrifying. I felt swallowed whole. Controlled by it. Unable to escape and climb back into the light. Until I reached the actual pit and felt a sort of stillness, of realization that this was as far down as it went. Like I was sitting peacefully at the bottom of the ocean and suddenly realized it wasn’t so scary, but also that it kind of hurt to keep holding my breath, that I’d really like nothing more than to surface and swim towards the light. Only then did the fear subside.

Reaching the bottom of your soul, the darkest pit of your sadness, is as intimate as you can ever get with yourself. It foments true love and appreciation for all that you are. All that you are capable of.

How can I continue to welcome and allow this darkness as an old familiar friend?