Hope Begins in the Dark

I need sun. I need it shining in the windows before I wake in the morning. I have no concept of time in the darkness. I simply want to sleep.

I wrote about my sentiments over the shortening days to a friend in an email and forgot I wrote it. In her abbreviated reply, I found this disjointed paragraph, "Vitamin D 2000 to 3000 IU my doctor says...." It wasn't until I came back at it later and reread my original email that I figured out that she was talking about the lack of sun. Once again, I thought to myself - unless someone takes that Vitamin D and shines it through my windows in the morning, that is of no use to me.

I cannot recall ever feeling like this in the fall. By March? Yes! I have been known to sit in a sunbeam and soak up the rays simply to replenish that missing Vitamin D. But I don't think I'm missing the vitamin yet. It is simply the sun that is lacking.

I suppose that I should turn on every light in the house as I wake, to give me the illusion of daylight (she writes, as she sits in the darkness with little more than the light from the computer screen illuminating her way). I love this sensation of writing in the darkness when it is Christmas time and the only lights that I turn on are the Christmas lights. But this is September. We have not yet reached the point where our daylight hours equal the darkness.

The weather is showing signs of the impending cooler days. Our mornings are brisk. You need three layers of clothing to get through the temperature changes of the day. At least we can still go outside ...

I find the mere idea of winter overwhelming me. I am working at the best job in the world where I don't have to brave the harsh weather. My work comes to me. All we have to do is hunker down and find ways to spend our days within the warmth and comfort of home. Yet I feel a case of cabin fever coming on.

We have spent a great deal of this summer outside. The only days we sequestered ourselves inside, were the ones where the heat was unbearable and it was more comfortable (and safer) to stay inside of an air conditioned house.

Our five day forecast is predicting beautiful fall weather. Three out of five of those days are Daycare Days. Two of those days I will not even be home.

Two of those days I will be out and about as I attend the school reunion that I thought that I was anticipating. It turns out ... I am not. The clouds have come in and are raining on my parade. The self confidence that I planned on packing up and accessorizing myself with? I think that it is somewhere out there with the sun that is lacking.

This too shall pass away. I know that it will. It always does. It is always darkest before the dawn. I feel something on my horizon and I think that it is going to be great. Because it is feeling pretty dark around here right now.

"Hope begins in the dark, 

the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, 

the dawn will come. 

You wait and watch and work: 

you don't give up."

~ Anne Lamott