Only If the Lights Are On

In my July 2 blog post, “A Talk With My Brother,” I asked him—my brother—to be my Guardian Angel. I believe in angels. And I truly believe that when I asked for his help to lift the darkness I’d been carrying, he answered. Not only did he help… he guided me to the very source of this darkness.

Now, for the first time, I’m beginning to process memories I’ve spent a lifetime trying to reach—but never could. I had read about repressed memory here and there, but I never thought it applied to me. When I tried to look back on my childhood, all I ever found was black. Very few images or emotions—just a lot of black walls behind my eyelids.

When I sat quietly with myself, I’d sense something. A cobweb in my brain. An ache in my heart but I couldn’t explain it. Here is my feeble attempt to try to explain...

Did you know that when you look at white—like the background of this screen—you’re seeing all the colors at once? White is what happens when every color shows up to the party. Black, on the other hand, is the absence of color. A complete void.

Lately, it feels like light has finally begun shining into the darker corners of my past. And suddenly—click—so many things about who I am, and why, are starting to make sense.

Here’s the thing: our experiences shape us. They don’t have to define us, but they do sculpt us. Thankfully, we’re wonderfully moldable—at any age.

Take Grandma Moses. She didn’t start painting until her 70s, and by her 80s and 90s, she was a world-renowned folk artist.

She once said, “Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.”

That quote speaks to me now more than ever. Sometimes, the most powerful thing we can do is step outside ourselves and see our lives from another angle—not from inside our heads or our pain, but through the eyes of others around us. What might they see? How might they be affected? That kind of perspective shifts everything.

As Wayne Dyer said,

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Now that I’ve looked back—really looked—I no longer have to carry it all with me. I can lay it down at the cross. The weight has lifted. The light has entered. And I’m beginning to live with a little more understanding, a little more compassion… especially for myself. The light is on now. And I’m no longer afraid of the dark from the past.

I’m sure there are still some cobwebs in there that i will have to deal with, but if the lights on, I’m not afraid.