Living in a culture that largely devalues the importance of sorrow and struggle, and how it can also enrich our lives… where do we turn when we simply are not alright?

Where are the places where our tired bones can sit and be present as we shed the tears of the struggles we have walked with for years.. never having the place to let them go and honor them in a way that reinvigorates our lives.

I spent so many years not feeling okay. Feeling like I must continually put a mask on that I had it all together… even though inside of me, life felt like a mess.

But as long as I stayed on my white horse pretending, all is well…. right?

This month, to honor old sorrow that is ready to be acknowledged and let go, I joined a 30 day writing course to support its presence in my life.

For me, I knew there was still some old sadness sunk into my bones, slowing me down… It was time to honor these old parts of me that need my attention.

Today, I wrote about my relationship to sorrow through the color black. A color that felt to be the backdrop of my life’s story for a long time.

“Black. You swallow me in pain.

You swallow my soul and eat away at my very existence. You tell me of my nothingness. You try to tell me of my powerlessness in being. You guide me deeper and deeper into the swells of hell when I allow you in my life.

Black, the color of my heart for many years, years where I felt that I could only ever know terror. Black, you have been my friend and my worst enemy.

You have shown me both how to survive and how to drive myself into a grave.

You were there when I attempted to end my own life, daunting me with the essence of never knowing joy.

You were there on the day of my sister’s death… Reminding me that I am not forever here.

Black, my relationship with you for 30+ years has been one of familiarity and one of sorrow. For you remind me how deeply hurt I have been.

And you pulled me to the fringe of society, to the fringe of life, telling me it’s safer to be alone.

To die alone. And to allow life to slip by… for it is soon enough anyway that I will be swallowed into a bit of nothingness… lost within the void of history, never to be known, loved, and cherished.

Black I hate you, and yet, struggle to let you go. For you have been all that I have known until now. Your teachings have made me into someone that I am honored to be, and yet, there, still lingering within you is a worry of total surrender..

Within you I hear the voice of fear that says do not let go… Do not let go, for life will swallow you whole… and you will disappear into the black pit of nothingness.

You must continue to fight, says black. You must continue to be the lonely island in your life, for that is the only way. You must remain in sorrow. You must remain separate from your own love, it tells me.. For to fully allow the embrace of unconditional love in, ensures my devastating downfall into the pit again.

To love fully for the first time, threatens black.. For black needs my pain to thrive. And I need my love to live again. And I need to let go of black’s hold on me. To move beyond the throes of hell it has shown me that still grieve through my pores…

Black, please let me go. Let me move on beyond this past life that once was, that clings to my bones. Let me go. Let me move beyond you. I have heeded many of your lessons… And I have heard your limitations and lies.

You are no longer in control of my life, lost in a never ending pit of pain… You are no longer in control of my heart, keeping me closed to the beauty that life does have to offer.

You no longer get to tell me to hide from my own love. For you care nothing for me. You only care to suck the life out of everything around you. You are lost in your own pain so deeply, that you attempt to drag all of life into the pit with you.

You pulled me in over and over through years of attempting my own life. Directly and through numbing my pain.

No more. I’ve had a taste for life beyond you. I know what is is real. The darkness that you offer and are is real.. But it is not only you that exists. There is life beyond you. There is life where the lessons you have shown me become that of wisdom, rather than pain. Of gifts rather than destruction.

Thank you for all you have taught me about life, Black.

I would not wish the pain I experienced through you on anyone.

And yet, through years of struggling with you, you have taught me who I truly am.

Thank you, black.

Your time and presence in my life is now forever changed.

No longer lost in you. I walk consciously aware of your presence. While walking aware of what exists beyond you.

In this awareness, I am free.

I am at home in my life.

Black, my only hope is that anyone that walks your darkness, the depths of what you show us about ourselves, can come to see beyond you. Your lessons are invaluable… and necessary… and yet, to live a full life, I had to awaken to what was beyond your presence.

Be well.

For now I know who I am.