I have always had a very predominate dark side.
I always liked horror movies, and macabre things. I was a Goth of sorts in school. I listened to heavy metal, which they now call classic rock. *Yikes!* I dressed in dark clothes, loved heavy eyeliner and silver jewelry, before and after my misguided Goth Days.
I was comfortable with that. It was me. People accepted it in me, and liked that about me. Some people even loved me because of it.
Then recently I went on an inner journey to “find myself” again, as I have done several times in my life. Come to find out, I was never lost!
For some reason I decided that the very thing that was responsible for who I was in life was the thing that I needed to get away from. I decided I was to “dark” and morbid and to depressed and melancholy.
So I began to morph myself into someone else. I stopped wearing black, stopped wearing make up, stopped doing anything with my hair really. I stopped listening to the same kind of music, stopped reading the genre of books I usually liked. I stopped doing nine tenths if the things that made me happy in the past. I told myself I was “growing up.” When you are married with three kids, you are not supposed to be into those things anymore….right?
I strayed away from the friends I had most of my life. I made new friends, some of which I still have, that embraced the lighter side of life. I started listening to and reading light and fluffy things. Never mind the fact I did not retain even a fraction of it five minutes after I read it.
This was all good and fine for a while, and I thought I was making some kind of headway on my journey. It did teach me a few things about myself, so I guess that was one good thing, and another is I did meet a couple of special people.
About a month ago, all these rainbows and butterflies started to leave a very bad taste in my mouth. I had started to be more depressed than I ever was while embracing my dark side and it confused me. I was all light and fluffy now; I was not supposed to be depressed!
I started noticing my dreams getting darker, and better. They felt more natural. I do not dream of bad things, just they have a dark tone to them. Like a thriller movie of sorts. I also noticed I was listening to the music I liked again, and sought out some new stuff I have never heard of, but was very edgy.
The artwork I liked, the clothing, the music, the stuff I searched for while surfing the net, all pointed back to the way I was before.
Then it hit me.
There was nothing WRONG with me in the first place! I had not changed myself. I had allowed others to tell me that I was wrong. I had allowed others to tell me what I should be, regardless of what I really was, regardless of what was really inside of me!
I was disgusted with myself.
I have now started the slow, decadent descent back into my rightful place in my mind, and in the universe.
There can be no light without the dark. I am not negative; I am just cut from a different cloth than the fluffy bunnies out there. They have there place in the world, just as I have mine. With out each other, none of us would exist!
It’s all about balance.
I can appreciate the lighter people in the universe…but I finally realize I do not have to BE one of them in order to be happy, fulfilled, and complete.
It is time to drag the black band and skull t-shirts out of the closet, put on some eyeliner, do something with my mess of hair, and crank the Metallica back up and get back to the real me!
As long as I am happy, and my family is happy, everyone else can either accept me or get the hell out of the way! Those that love me will love me even if I say “Dark Blessings” as opposed to “Love and Light.” You wanna know why?
Because they are the same thing………
Hope you brought your flashlight, because the path gets a bit darker from here……*winks*
Great piece.