Light

This has been a quiet and restful weekend....which I welcomed after the crazy amount of activity of the last month.  Yet, this weekend is always my most dreaded each year.  This is the weekend that I officially bid a fond farewell to the light.  I know the days have been getting shorter and the darkness sneaks up on me a little earlier....but on the night that we turn the clocks back....it's official....winter is just about here.

It didn't help that this particular weekend, as if to emphasize the point, a nor'easter came to visit....and as it left, it took my power with it.  I got to thinking about that sequence of events.  That is exactly what the light does for me...it gives me power, hope, the will to get through today and tomorrow, no matter what they have in store.  But when the darkness encroaches....with my light, goes my power.... the darkness makes me tired and weak and robs me of my will to some degree.

I am sure no one reaches my age, but they haven't had to deal with some measure of darkness in their life.  It's painful to remember those dark hours...when not a glimmer of light could be seen....when you just didn't know how you would make it through that tunnel...tired and scared and weak.  And yet....I somehow had soaked up enough light to see my way through that darkness...the light came from somewhere deep within...and I emerged on the other side with my light not diminished...but more brilliant from the experience.
So I bid the light a fond farewell and I will be joyfully waiting it's return....but in the meantime...I will try to shine as brightly as I know how... to light the path of those who are stumbling in those dark places.

“It's not what you have on the outside that glitters in light, it's what you have on the inside that shines in the dark.” 

~ Anthony Liccione