MeliGoesRogue

I stepped out of the shower today and stood in front of the foggy mirror for awhile. Trying to make myself out in the distortion. I stood until slowly the fog turned into sweat dripping down and soon I emerged. I realized how often I look in the mirror but I never really look at myself. I am always so focused on my imperfections that thru the years it has become difficult to find beauty. Even as the moment came where I wanted to look away I knew I could not. I looked into my own eyes and I saw pain and anger but as the seconds passed soon I saw the woman that others have seen. I saw courage, a desire to persevere and beauty.

I stepped out to the darkness the garden offered in the hopes of getting this out. Out of me and onto a place where I no longer curl up with it. I love being in the dark, not because of the stillness that darkness offers but rather clarity. See after a few minutes in the dark what used to be indecipherable now has its angles of definition, our eyes begin to adjust. But it requires ambient light. I think of my life in the darkness and those who I have been fortunate to have around me that have given me of their light to help define the lines that I have found so difficult to find. For years I have been trying albeit perhaps not genuinely hard to get out of the darkness, and yet as I sit here in it I realize those things I hate are the beauty that stared back at me thru the mirror. But it is only now as my eyes adjust I am able to see that.

This year will mark the fifth year of my annual trip. I am trying to remember who was that woman who had looked at complacency and called its bluff. She is inside of me and I have allowed myself to suppress her. I need to push the status quo again. To no longer be satisfied with my own unhappiness. To instead look at the opportunity to expand to change the scenery and the goal. I have always been that woman who has believed that the job, house, husband and children would give me the happiness I so longed for. I was sure they would bring the fullness that has been so far from me for as long as I can remember. But the truth is there is fullness in my life right now but the bright sun has caused my hands to cover my eyes and bump into everything other than the freedom I actually had. In this stillness I can feel the fullness. Who knew I would find light in the blackout.