Transformation...

6am. Wide awake. Rain pitter pattering on my window. Reading. Breathing. Wondering. 

Finally.... smiling. 

I smiled, a real smile, for the first time in a really long time this morning. I woke up without my alarm. I read some of my book and watched the rain fall outside my window. It has rained ALL. DAY. LONG. 

BUT. 

Sometimes rain must fall. Without rain, we would not grow. Without rain, we would die (eventually - but still a long agonizing death). Without rain, we would not appreciate the sun. So, today... with all it's ugliness I can see beauty. Beauty in the rain. I put on my rain boots & carried my umbrella... walking through every puddle I could all the way to work. 

Sometimes in life, all we need is for our perspective to change. The rain is still there, but now I jump in puddles instead of avoiding them. Because in the end we all just want to be happy...

Perspective

So, perspective... over the last few weeks life has been hell. There's just no easy way to put it. Sickness scares and legal trouble with family, being overworked and underpaid, and personal struggles. It was the week for everything to hit me at once. 

I unloaded on friends... which probably scared a few away... I went on walks... I cried myself to sleep for about a week. It was just all too much. Until a mentor gave me a book called Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore. This is an interesting book that helps to change perspective on the rough patches or 'dark nights' of the life. It proposes the point that there is beauty in the dark times of life. That one can find peace in the transformation process. 

I've started to think about these ideals. To see beauty in all things good and bad. It is helping me realize that all moments in life are needed and wonderful... even the bad ones. 

Tonight I also realized that the best medicine for a 'dark night' is the light of friendship and laugher. I have the best people in my life and the best roommate. Thank you all for being yourself. Thank you for enduring the ups and downs of my moods and my life. Thank you for existing in this world. 

Rough Week

SO these last couple of weeks have been stressful and difficult. Work was rough because of graduation and then I have some family issues going on right now. BUT. The small shining light has been the few people in my life I call friends. They have endured my rants, crying, blaming...  This week has been one of the ugliest in a long while, and these people still answer my text and/or calls... now that folks is friendship. It has not been pretty but it has been the beginning of a journey. 

One of these friends has suggested I read 'Mere Christianity' by C.S. Lewis. I started this book yesterday while on the beach but I must admit the majority of it went over my head. But, in his preface Lewis writes:

"IT is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping."

I think at some point my waiting has turned into camping. It's time to open a door... even if it is the one that scares me to death or later on I find out it is the wrong one. It's time to knock on any door and see what the room holds.