Out of the Darkness

Every time I write a blog post, I swear it will be my last one.  But then an idea will strike me hard and my mind starts racing.  Like Holden Caulfield, I think in a stream of consciousness (however, mine is with considerably fewer swear words).  In order to slow down my brain and process my thoughts, I seem to need to write.  As I was stepping into the shower this morning, I was thinking about a brief reference I made the other day to something I have said in my blog.  That led to thinking about the different posts in my blog and the topics I have discussed.  In particular, I thought about my “Into the Darkness” post.  I’ve never gone back to read it again, and I don’t know if or when I will do so, but the question that came to mind is, “Are you now OUT of the darkness?”  I thought about what it felt like to be IN the darkness, and my immediate answer became obvious and clear:  YES, I AM out of the darkness.  That answer came with a big, deep, relieved sigh.  However, something was wrong, off.  I don’t at all feel like I did two and a half years ago before I began my unintentional journey.  I feel so radically different than I did then.  And then, the answer – or at least the analogy – came to mind of the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings. Frodo, Samwise Gamgee, Merry and Pippen, came home from their perilous journey to Mount Doom.  They survived!  They were successful in their quest!   They destroyed the ring!  Things can now go back to the way they were before!!  Right?  I love how Peter Jackson portrayed these four friends as they sit in Frodo and Sam’s favorite pub.  Everyone else around them laughs and drinks and behaves as if nothing has changed - because for them, nothing has (yes, I know it’s different in the book, stick with the analogy purists).  However, for these four friends, everything is different.  The places they have been, the battles they have been forced to wage externally and internally, have forever changed them.  I realized this morning that I recognized the looks on their faces as they looked around at the people in the pub.  They seem slightly awed that everyone seemed to be going about living their lives as if nothing has changed.  They realize that they are the same hobbits as they have always been, and yet, they are now very VERY different.

I feel like these characters (hopefully not Frodo though, I still think Sam should have just pushed him into the lava, ring and all, when he refused to throw it in to be destroyed once and for all, but I digress).  I feel like I have fought, and mostly won, the internal battles I was forced to wage.  All of the surprising, new fears have been sent on their way to find new homes.  I hope they will be kinder to their new hosts.  So, I won.  Right?  Yes, and . . . yes.  However, because of the journey I travelled, I will forever be different. Like the returning hobbits, I look around and see others, and it seems to me that nothing has changed for them, yet everything about me, internally, has changed:  how I see other people, how I see myself, how I see my future, how I see my family and friends, how I interact with others, what I am interested in, how I spend my time.  A song I like to sing from the musical, “Ragtime”, sums it up perfectly, “We can never go back to before.”  Robert Frost said, “The best way out is always through.”  Through means we begin on one end, travel through something, and then continue on our way.  We don’t loop back and pick up where we left off before beginning the trial.  I have had close friends say that I seem different.  I am.  For good or for bad, I will forever be different.  Hopefully I will be more compassionate, less judgmental, more patient – with God and myself, more open, more quiet, a better listener . . .  and more still.