Into The Lighting

Posted on January 17, 2019 by Apparently Catherine

A cool evening breeze has finally given us respite from the scorching heat of the past few days bringing with it a silent yet tremendous light show that is eerily illuminating the dark night to the perfect beat of the appropriately soulful and sorrowful music currently playing on my iPod.

It seems that recently, in almost every moment I am reminded of how much greater than me this world is, and yet how powerful the affect is that we each have upon it. Our choices, small and large all directly impact ourselves and indirectly influence those around us.

These individual experiences that we all share change us forever, some for the better some for the worse, but what they all have in common is the simple fact that no matter how seemly insignificant our decisions may seem at the time, we will never quite be the same after making them.

The butterfly effect ripples through these tides of evolutionary change and amidst the cycles of human repetition we seem to so predictably follow there are subtle differences, tiny changes in a choice, in a thought, in a way of life.

Change is considered to be frightening and yet we have experienced nothing else our entire lives, we have been constantly evolving from birth, it is simply the speed in which it sometimes seems to happen that scares us.

We can’t outrun our shadows yet we cannot simply stay still in those shadows either, for they themselves will inevitably continue moving, changing, evolving too.

Today a series of poor decisions, hard decisions and uncontrollable consequences along the rippled road of other peoples time meant we said a temporary goodbye to a young girl we don’t know well really, yet care about immensely.

She has made brief but meaningful appearances in our lives and while they have made minimal impact in her treacherous journey, they have changed ours for the better.

Today she must face yet another series of changes far beyond her control, far beyond her understanding or capacity to emotionally cope with and yet she will; just as she always has, because she has to.

She will also learn devastating news today of how a separate series of poor decisions has now left one of the few consistent young family members still allowed into her broken world critically injured and forever changed, if not forever lost.

I hate that I can’t fix this when I feel like I should be able to, I hate that it fills my soul with sadness and yet like a callous shrew my eyes are unable to make tears, instead my heart ties itself up into protective knots as I drown in a desert of my own powerlessness.

The sky bursts with flashes of white, threatening this parched, sunburnt land with their devastating potential and rumbles of thunder sound in the distance; but it is clear no rain will fall from the heavens tonight either.

I close my eyes as songs of sadness ring perfect metaphors into my soul and hope she will survive this life.

I take a deep breath and slowly let myself drift away with the music, into a world where for just a while anything is possible, where we have the futures we desire and the pasts that no longer haunt us, into the night, into the lightning.