Afraid of the Dark
The power went out the other night.
Miles wasn’t feeling well and had woken up around 1:30 am. I went into the boys room and nuzzled myself in with Miles to get him back to sleep. Not long after I had finally dozed back into dreamland, Mason got out of bed. It was the craziest thing but the instant he stood up the power went out.
He was immediately scared and cried out. Right as his foot hit the floor, the noise machine became silent and the night light cut out. Thankfully, I was right there and was able to make him feel safe right away. I led him in the pitch black to Matt. I knew that Miles was going to be crying soon and I wouldn’t be able to sleep with both boys on the floor.
After getting everyone situated and checking downstairs to make sure that my mom was alright, I scooped Miles up and brought him into Mason’s bed and attempted to fall asleep. As I lay there, trying to clear my mind I was acutely aware of the silence and of the dark.
Why are we so afraid of the dark? I guess not everyone is but there is something about not being able to see my own hand in front of my face that stirs uneasiness inside of me. I couldn’t quite feel settled. I found crazy thoughts running through my brain. I thought of why the power went out and of course all of the paranoid reasons that maybe it did. I think I’ve seen too many horror movies in my day.
I thought about blind people who are in the dark all the time. Are they afraid? The ones who became blind later in life? I thought about how we just adapt as humans to our environment. How we’re adapting right now to what’s happening in our lives. I realized that part of what I feel every day is the result of blindness. Blindness in respect to where the money is going to come from to allow us to continue living here, in the Bay Area. Blindness to what is happening with my mother and what the future holds for her and for us. Blindness to the picture I want to hold in front of me to walk towards.
Our church has developed this great breakdown of ways of being that the sermons have been about each week. They are all based on how to go Toward. How we can move Toward a life with Christ, a life with God. The last weeks were about “Going”. What it looks like to have a “go” moment. It can be even a little step like the one I had taking to our friend Gloria about coming to church with us one Sunday. Or it can be big like the people that go across the globe to spread the Word. But, I started to think about how I got here, what brought me toward this place im our lives right now. How I held an image of Matt and I sitting in a beautiful backyard, high fiving (yes, I hate to admit that I may be half of a high fiving couple but I think I am) each other and watching the boys run around. I held this image in my scope of vision not knowing how or when or where it was going to show up but, it did. Here we sit, in a home with a beautiful back yard and the vision is a reality.
Now, I feel like I’m in the dark. Like I was the other night. My visions of the future are cloudy. Blurry I guess as another photographer friend Carrie said about a week ago. I can’t quite make out what is ahead. Where we will be, what we will be doing. I think the biggest reason I’m struggling with this inevitable change is that I was happy. I was happy at how life was and where we were heading. Now it feels like someone picked us up and shook everything up and now we’re trying to put the pieces back together to form a new puzzle.
There is a feeling of collective unease everywhere I go. It almost helps because I know that we are not alone in this, but the journey feels incredibly individual. The answer that is right for one family isn’t what is right for another, so we’re all out there making adjustments and plans and who knows where we’ll all end up. I do however have hope and when I sit and think about it, I’m not scared about the future even though I can’t see a thing.
I’m thankful that our faith in God has grown over this last year. I feel calm knowing that He is there and that we will be taken care of and that I don’t have to have all of the answers. I am in the dark, but just like my hand was there for Mason, His hand is there for me. I have felt guided since we left Oakland and I just keep praying for clear signs and a clear path to be placed in front of us so we know where to go.
