Fade Darkness - Enter Light Stage Right

It has been well over a year - a year and a half almost exactly, since I've come to my own blog spot. I've re-read my prior postings and realize how much I still have to do. One spot in my attic is now clean. There are still bundles and boxes, but they are neatly stacked, covered, and set aside. No more dust, no more cobwebs - no more shadow.

I look at that corner often and as much as my ghosts haunted and pained my very being, I miss them now that they have been exorcised. There is more light there now, since the clutter and filth has been put in the trash and wiped clean. The warmth that embraces that little tiny spot is cause for a smile. A sense of accomplishment mingles with the loss, almost overwhelming me in their conflict. I allow them to take turns instead. I make the assumption that eventually, when those spectres have been vacated for long enough, I will cease to feel as though something were missing.

I am grateful for the accomplishments, but to deny my long time attachment to the dark would be a lie. It is a process. I've begun to tackle some other areas, ones far darker and far more sinister. The shadows that live in this place are old and so firmly ensconced in their habitat that mere exorcism will not suffice. This task will require an all out battle of wills; me against myself.

The demons of childhood are built upon year after year, gaining size, strength and determination. They hover in the corners of our very souls, taunting while slowly dissecting our most sacred being - our sense of self. They become enmeshed in our day to day lives, becoming inextricable and to attempt to rid ourselves of them means to amputate some larger portion of ourselves; or worse, soulful suicide. To become a walking dead; giving all appearances of being a living being working, walking, laughing, crying... but the inside bitterly cold and empty, no fulfillment to be had, an appetite that can never be satisiied. Physical death would be preferable.

There is no way to terminate these creatures, given birth to by experience and fed by our sorrow and self-pity. The most we can hope for is to weaken them and force them into submission, allowing us to make peace with that part of ourselves that has been so agonizingly haunted. There is only one way to force the hand of these monsters of the past however, and that is to face them head on and allow them full entry into our current being, to overwhelm them with the light and truth of the now. Sometimes, when something is stuck and you want to get it out, you have to push it in a little further before you can pull it free. This demon of suffering must be allowed access, with no hinderances or inhibitions. Barriers will only lend it strength - but the pain... the pain is so extreme that even knowing that the pain will render greater healing at the end of it, it is almost insufferable.

This is the place that I have chosen as my next project. It is a grand portion of this hole that must be cleaned. There are little monsters that haunt this place, having been given life by the larger, fed by my own hand. There is more depth here than anywhere else I will have to face after. Fortunately, I am not alone. I am the only one that can take on this task, but I can hear the voices of strength around me. There is energy here that mixes with mine and helps support me when I am about to crumble into dust, to join the rest of the bunnies that bounce around this cave.

I breath deeply, looking at the swipes I've already taken to decontaminate my soul. They are visible, but so small in comparison... there is so much work to do. I want to sit down and survey this project before I take the next step. I have doubts about my ability to really accomplish such a tremendous project. But I know me and I know that if I sit down and think instead of just jumping into the thick of it, I will hesitate moments too long and my opportunity will have passed.

I see a glimmer of something shiney here and there. I know those are moments of glory and joy. I don't know what those glimmers are exactly and they are too far back to try to fathom through the darkness as to their form. I will have to get through what seems like miles of muck to get to even the nearest one. The thing is.. these are only vague indicators... who knows what treasures may lie in wait ... but I have to get past the monsters and demons and dirt to find them.

I hate this job... but no one else can do it and if I don't, then I fear I will be stuck here, in the darkness, for eternity - alone, afraid, and harboring bitterness so foul it hangs in the air like a dense fog. I have no desire to be trapped like that. I've been here long enough as it is. It is time to turn my prison into a place of enlightenment, peace and hope.