The Edge of Darkness

Sometimes…sometimes I stare into absolute nothingness. I look at things but I don’t see anything.

Have you ever felt that way?

Have you ever felt like someone looks at you but doesn’t see you? Ever felt as though your body of work (your expression of emotions): writing, art, music, declaration of amore, etc has been glanced over but never actually read, seen, felt, or heard but no listened to?

Those are the days/nights when the glass isn’t half-full…it’s just plain empty.

Emptiness tugs at your gut with a force you are unable or unwilling, even, to counter. It’s as if the center of your body has caved in. The area around your heart, the Ergo Sphere of your ambition, your passion, your Inner Core has begun to swirl wildly like an interstellar storm in the island universe that is you and consumes your will, your desire.

The fear, ultimately, is that your hope, whether it’s about career, relationships or love has been sucked into an inescapable vortex of despair and forever lost to a Black hole of absolute nothingness. This kind of thing happens. It’s bound to happen and quite frankly, if it didn’t happen then I’d begin to question just how strongly you feel about your writing, your art, your music, your ambition…or the people you love.

I’d suggest you check to see if you still have a pulse!

As long as you live, you need to be willing to feel alive. Even if that means that you may find moments when you aren’t going to feel happy. I urge you to do this for many reasons, among them, because that’s my definition of living life to the fullest.

Lose yourself in someone else’s eyes. Lock into that stare between souls because you may actually find the love  you’ve been searching for your entire life. Hold hands for no particular reason or whisper, “I need you,” just because.

Reach out and call/email or visit that friend you had a falling out with all those years ago over what may actually have been a misunderstanding. Go to that audition, revise that query letter one more time and send it to that agent whose blog you’ve been reading because ten years from now, you don’t want to be staring off into space wondering what could have been had you taken that chance.

Sure, there is a possibility that those eyes you glance into won’t see you the same way, or that the person to whom you whisper doesn’t hear you because they’re listening for someone else. And yes, you may open that email to find another rejection letter from the agency that you thought surely would have taken you on as a client.

The most important thing to remember is that you made the effort! I mean, truly gathered your courage, mustered up every ounce of energy within you and put forth 100% and then some.

Life is about more than just breathing. Hence the words of George Carlin, “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but the moments that take our breath away.”

So do it. Let yourself be taken away (yes, even by aliens) feel nervous when your heart begins to race and your breathing becomes shallow.

Find happiness, not just laughter.

Feel passion, not just love.

Feel inspired, don’t just think of ideas.

For crying out loud don’t just sit there, get up and dance!

At least leave yourself open to it because anything truly is possible and a life without it is merely an empty void in time.

The beauty of all this is that even if things don’t unfold as you hoped they would, at least your emotions have been stirred. The gravy of your life now has the ingredients of experience and any good cook will tell you that you don’t just add the seasoning only to let the sauce sit over an open flame because it will simply stick to the pan and become utterly useless.

No. You cannot…you must not let this happen! Even if you prefer Alfredo sauce to marinara sauce (which is still quite a tasty alternative) you still have to eat. Don’t starve yourself and forego affection, because you can’t let yourself go to bed on an empty stomach. Eat a little and store the rest in the fridge while you dream. If you cooked it properly, oh the flavor it will contain tomorrow will amaze you!

That’s what it’s all about!

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, someone will love you; an agent will request a partial or a full; your song will sing across the digital air waves and you will feel complete. It may take time but it’s better to have time. Perhaps time is what we need. Be grateful for it. And while time passes, while those long moments of heartbreak or disappointment echo with a thunderous silence, sit back, stare into space and reflect. You have to decide to move on and then actually do it.

Allow yourself to feel that pain. Use it to move forward. Let your hope, heartbreak and tears swirl into the void at the center of your galaxy. Don’t hold it in or bottle it up because all you’re doing is allowing it to build up into a wall of resentment. A wall that while you think exists only to protect your heart is actually cloaking your talent and preventing your soul from finding the nourishment it needs to thrive and express!

Let yourself feel, please, even if it is not a good feeling, and then allow it all to sink into that Black hole of hurt because it is bound to come out the other end through what physicists like to refer to as a White hole.

A Big Bang that signifies the rebirth of you; your Genesis, your new beginning!

This is when all that pain, all that hurt, all that disappointment journeys through a wormhole of emotions and morphs into creative energy, inspired expression and has the potential of becoming your masterpiece.

So live life, laugh; write a letter (to someone, no one, or yourself) talk to a confidant, cry on your pillow, run in the rain and let it all out. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did and who knows, maybe someone will fall in love with what you create.

Perhaps you’ll see the person whose been watching you from a distance and who has already fallen in love with you.

In conclusion, I leave you with this quote:

“To find light in the darkness, you must shine your own light, follow your own path, and don’t worry about the darkness, for that is when the stars shine brightest” ~Unknown