Sticky like tar, dark like the night, oftentimes grief and loneliness aren’t easy to scrub off from our being. There is an isolation that is felt intensely in those gut punch moments where our story seems so different from the rest of the world that we’d rather go alone than make the effort to share it with someone. Phone calls remain unanswered, hair uncombed, chipped nail paint, ironing left for yet another Sunday, the self-imposed isolation has its rituals.
In those moments, we forget that when we were passing better days, our rituals were different. And interestingly, checking on friends who were going through a bad patch, a part of our being. That one phone call on the drive to work to wake up a friend who would’ve slouched in bed all day long, had it not been for that one conversation in the morning to make her get up and have breakfast. Did it not feel precious, to hold out your hand for someone to grab and climb out of their mess?
It feels surreal on days to feel this connected to another person, to be able to have their trust in moments when their belief is flattened out. But why is it that what we do so naturally for others, doesn’t come naturally to us for ourselves? Why do we fail to light our inner lamp, but find it easy to offer the flickering flame to others, however stormy the night? This festive season, how about giving ourselves our own love and soul connection to the self, so that we can light up the lives of those who are still looking for that inner light in the sticky tar that life is at times.
