I haven’t posted like I said I would. I have been writing but I’ve avoided posting. Something was shifting inside me. I was in a dark place. My whole family life has shifted, seemingly overnight. However, when I look back I could see the subtle signs. As I grappled with my chronic illness and loss of identity, my family was also trying to navigate this new me. They weren’t prepared and it took a toll, especially on my partner.
I tried to manage and help to support everyone, but I slid deeper and deeper into debt with my body and my own health. I knew I had to face some of my own demons before I could help anyone else. I had to take a midnight walk.
The midnight walk may be something you try to resist at first. You may put on a brave face and try to power through. The more you avoid it, the stronger the reaction is. Either in your body or your mind. Invisible. Painful. Unsettling. My decline was a slow slide. Although I was giving one hundred percent effort, nothing was working. A dear friend offered to take me to a sound bath the night of the winter solstice. It was also a new moon that night, so everything was so dark, the only contrast being the fields of white snow that surrounded us. As we left, she asked me how I was feeling. I looked out over the frosty, dark terrain and I told her “I feel like if I walked into that field, I would just become part of the darkness.” It was the that I realized I had started my own midnight walk. The surrender was the first step.
We are taught at a young age to fear the darkness. It’s evolution in one part. Realistically, we want to have a nightlight on. Everything bad happens to people at night, right? Every scary movie tells us that. Because I live in a society where systemic racism is still alive and well, we have demonized all things dark. Darkness is always the enemy. I didn’t want to surrender into my darkness. I wanted to be all love and light and positive fucking vibes! Alas, I succumbed when the facade was to difficult to maintain. I was broken down. I felt intimately connected to my own deep sadness for the first time. It wasn’t a feeling of sadness. No. It was an understanding at the soul level. I had an unknown path to follow, and that path led straight into my own darkness. So, I took the first step.
I have decided to write more about my personal midnight walk. It has been the most difficult and powerful time in my life. There were things I didn’t want to confront. Things I didn’t see were lurking behind the trees. Things I knew I had to face. Alone. In my darkness. In order to become stronger. In order to thrive.
I welcome you to revisit this page. I am writing for myself to document my own experience. I also write in the hopes of helping even one person, who may have started their own walk, and is afraid. Not everyone is brave enough to start this journey. Some of us are forced by circumstances. Some of us just find ourselves in a place where, on a very dark night, in a very cold field, we look out and feel like the only thing that could understand us or hold space for our grief, is the very void that we are staring at.
