My life was lived in lightness, my family always knew how to have a good time. We laughed and had parties and stayed away from the heavier topics of life. We dismissed and avoided the darkness, unable to see the gifts it had for us.
The year after my failure, I had no choice but to step into the dark. I guess I could have avoided it then too, but there was something inside of me that asked to be set free to grieve.
And so, for a year, I allowed it.
A year of shame, who were you to have that dream in the first place? If you were a better leader and entrepreneur, if you were more convincing, it could’ve happened. But you weren’t. How humiliating, that you gave this pursuit your all and came up short! That will teach you to try again. Some are winners, most are losers. You are one of the losers. How does that feel? You always have been if you recall. At least you used to know that and be content with it. Your mistake was thinking too highly of yourself.
A year of grief, it was my dream for years. Who am I without it? What fantasy will I run to when I feel unloved and inadequate? I have no future success to take refuge in anymore. I am left to myself. When I am treated unlovingly, I can’t escape to a future where I’ll be successful and untouchable, I simply have to be hurt by the lack of love. When I feel inadequate, I can’t shelter in a future success that redeems my worth. I simply have to feel inadequacy, to be touched by every ounce of suffering.
A year of hiding, no one will find me. I don’t want to explain what happened, I don’t want to tell them it’s over. As soon as they see me again, I will be forced to confront my failure. They will see the shame, it’s all over me. I am safe here in my house with my children, fully occupied as a mother with a new baby and a toddler. They won’t even question my disappearance. After all, so many mothers go into hiding. They’ll assume that’s where I went, thank God, or maybe they never think of me at all.
A year of reckoning, why did so much of my self-concept get woven into an idea? I had to prove that I wasn’t just capable of success, I had to prove that I was good, that my heart was in the right place. I know now that, in some ways, it was. I wanted to help people desperately. I loved their stories and humanness. At the same time, I needed to prove myself. Instead, I was left with the knowledge that I wasn’t capable, but I was good…was that enough? I had to come back to myself over and over again.
A year of grounding, broken apart by my own gaze, I saw my ego for what it was. I saw the parts of me that needed to be healed before they could bring healing. Pain that we don’t transform becomes pain that we transmit to others, and I would begin to break cycles within myself and down my family tree. I had to pull apart the illusions, piece by piece, to understand what I was made of. I would ground in the nothingness, I was my own refuge. It was dark underground, but I knew I was good. That had to be enough.
I had always dismissed and avoided the dark, unaware of all it had to give to me. I preferred the party, the lightness and laughter, and when a moment didn’t call for either, I felt trapped. I didn’t know how to embrace the descent.
For a year, I was buried in my own shame and grief, underground I would hide and come to a reckoning. In the end, I would be more grounded than I ever had been in my life.
What a gift.
My feet are, for the first time in my life, on what feels to be solid ground.
We are alive, we die, and then we are brought back to life, over and over again if we allow it. This is the cycle of life and death and resurrection that will save us if we open ourselves up to our own darkness, known in Christianity as the Paschal mystery.
There will be years of life and years of death if we allow the mystery to work, and we will come to peace with both. We will understand that a spirit of fear is not ours to hold because we have nothing to be afraid of anymore. We’ll live and die and be brought back to life by a force greater than ourselves every time. The message of the cross if you are open to hear it:
Love is stronger than death.
I pray that you will allow yourself to be buried by the suffering of your life, that you will descend into your own depths, so that you may be made new.
I pray that you would surface with a renewed self-knowledge and hope for the future, with a peace that you can withstand whatever comes your way.
I pray that you descend and rise again, over and over again, embracing the mystery of resurrection for yourself throughout your life as it comes.
I pray that you would find the peace that only comes with a kinship with the process, of the mystery of dark and light, death and life.
For a year, I didn’t close the door to death. Instead, I opened my hands to it, and I am grateful that I did. Perhaps now it is time to throw a party.
I’m not afraid of the dark anymore, it had so much to give me.