The Seasons
lost and found
by Jeneen R. Garcia
to be published on January 28, 2006
Sometimes, sadness overcomes me like a blanket pulled over my feet, keeping me warm against the coldness of the world. It weighs on me heavily, yet it is also a source of comfort--giving me room to move, at the same time defining my boundaries of safety, telling me exactly who and where I am at the moment.
It is perhaps strange to speak about sadness as a comfort, but all these years, I have learned to live with the seasons of my soul.
I first discovered the seasons, or rather, came to terms with them, in college. For most of my childhood, I had lived in my own world, impervious to the events around me. It was a dark, silent world, my thoughts the only streaks of light. I would lie in bed for hours just thinking, or sometimes writing in my diary, talking to myself in my head.
As I surfaced more and more to the outside world, I began to feel the highs of human fellowship, only to drown deep into myself again in inexplicable moments of vulnerability--a moment of self-doubt, or low self-worth, feeling suddenly raw and exposed in the middle of a crowd or conversation.
I dreaded these dark times, didn’t know what to do with them. I lived the moments of joy always with reservation, convinced that in the next moment I would come sliding down fast. Eventually, I observed that as stealthily as the darkness would come, it would pass, too, unnoticed. And there was simply nothing to be done about it, nothing that was required of me but to embrace each darkness as it came.
This was when I began to truly live the seasons. I took on happiness in its fullness, sucking on every last drop until I had to concede there was nothing left in the bottle. And just as I welcomed the light, I welcomed the descent into darkness, too, knowing that it was necessary to face the unknowns I feared, to allow my heart to cry out in despair and helplessness, comforted always by the promise of light.
For I soon realized that it was there, and had always been. Darkness, after all, is the absence of light. That I can see in the dark--the weight of loss and absence, the wounds of battered hope--tell me that light is there, though in less familiar form. Embracing the darkness is an act of courage I have to do again and again, to remember what monsters I have already made peace with inside of me, to remember the pain that has made me strong enough to bask in the glare of light.
Just as the farmers are bound to the earth and its seasons of wetness and drought, fertility and barrenness, so must I wait on the seasons of my soul with faith and without fear: yes, the seasons must come.
I can quote more, quote every sentence, in fact, in awe of how you've been able to write them down this way. A beautiful tribute to these seasons that, yes I agree, must come, and always do. Thanks for the softness of this voice here which carry these words I couldn't say.
ReplyDeletethis was also a gift to me, a piece of purely intuitive writing =) i'd been working on my column since the afternoon before (already planned my topic since the week before) and wasn't getting anywhere. finally, i gave up on it and just typed this title and said, Lord, it's all yours. and it just flowed. finished it in a record-breaking (for me) hour with hardly any revisions. and imagining that i was talking to you made it easy =) didn't have to care if anyone else will understand.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful neen!your choice of words really come from somebody who is full of light.at some point while I was reading,the thought of you as my daughter was strangely hard to believe.and yet when you echo the same thought and feeling about light and darkness,it is not a surprise thatwe must have somedeepconnection of flesh and bone.This is one of my most grateful moments to God neen,realizing that among all the people in the world,we were chosen to be given the gift of you.keep on shining my love!
ReplyDeletei do remember this, but i don't remember it being dedicated to me.
ReplyDeletemaybe because it felt too dark somehow... yeah, that's just me. =)
but thank you. you and everything that comes from you are the best gifts ever.
something that (i think) i told you (either before or after) when you wrote this:
But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing. - 1 Thes 5:1-11
so may we always belong to the light.
even when we inevitably find ourselves in darkness.
HUGS,
jemi
yes, light is a choice i made, and it was November 2003 when i made that choice :) tell you about it sometime, if i haven't yet. basta Isaiah says God made the darkness, but John says God is light, and there can be no darkness in him.
ReplyDeletetrivia lang, i wrote this right after i lost ashley :P so you can imagine my despair.