The sheet against the light

Its a beautiful day outside but the warmth of the suns rays seem to be missing. It feels like I am in slow motion while everyone else in this world is moving at full speed. Catching up is unlikely, keeping up is an impossibility. The mind wants to run but the body immobile...heart racing a million miles a minute...like a race horse waiting for the gun to go off to start the race...but there is no race. There is no where to go. Where there were friends all you see is their backs and side glances as they pass by. Where there once was a strong home on a solid foundation...now stands a house of cards...maybe it was always a house of cards.

Taking a light sheet to lessen the intensity of the suns rays is what sadness must look like. It doesn't start off dark...it just goes dark. The more sheets you have, the less the intensity...but its not solely the lack of light that troubles the heart, its the weight of the sheets. Just like how the first sheet doesn't block all the light, the first sheet doesn't weigh so heavily on the heart. I recently have wondered if this is what people refer to as being in a dark place...a dark space...where the air is thick and heavy...where each place that your eye goes to is nothing but shadows or worse, completely empty. The hardest part of this experience is that you can't see the way out...you can't see what is weighing you down...you can't see hope. Hope is the motivator...even a glimmer of hope sparks activity. Take away the hope and you have darkness.

Its the moment when you are ok with the darkness and ok with the weight that really scares me. When your surroundings are dark and there still is no hope...but your heart stops racing...the anticipation is no longer there. Where you are not at peace but you aren't suffering anymore...knowing that time will move on...people will move on...but you will not.

The moment when you no longer feel safe but you are no longer afraid is dangerous. Thats where the fork in the road is...where decisions are made. Evaluating whether or not things are "worth it" is what happens in this quiet, unsafe but unafraid time. I wonder if the key is making a decision or if the key is time. If you consider the outside perception, any decision you make will be in haste...there is no good answer but to wait. Inside your mind, with all the noise...with all the stillness of your movements and the rapid pace of everyone around you...it would feel like making a choice would be well thought out.

It's difficult to understand each persons dark place, where helplessness exists because everyones dark places are constructed of different events, different experiences, different emotions. Powerlessness would make the outcome of every decision the same...so what does it matter. The only things that matter is time...when the decision is executed. The longer the delay, the better the chance that a tiny bit of light will find its way through the many sheets weighing the person down. The longer the delay, the more chance of warmth finding its way into the darkness. The longer the delay, the better the chance to find hope.

When you see people, smile at them...for you do not know the darkness that they may be passing through. When you see people, see the person and not the circumstance...for you may be the warmth that penetrates. When you see people, be giving...your time maybe all that they need to increase their time. When you see people, love them.

Kala and da Ohana