Originally posted May 3, 2008

I have met some incredible people in my lifetime, I know I will meet some more along this road but so far the night sky is full of sparkling stars representing each and every one. Each has their own story, their own heartache, they are ordinary human beings with hearts of gold.

So often when we experience pain, heartache or go through rough times we forget that the night sky always has stars, the clouds might cover them from our vision but they are always there sparkling, waiting for the clouds to clear. We can feel so alone in our misery that it can begin to feel as though we are so irreversibly alone, no one understands us or can understand us, our pain is ours and ours alone, we think that no one can relate to our experience.

Those dark day’s slowly warp our minds and we begin to feel so hopeless, thoughts of the fact that life perhaps is pointless filter through and push us on the downward spiral of despair and further heartache. We forget that those beautiful sunsets before the storm, we forget the beautiful sunrise that arises afterwards, we forget.

I have told you about my dark days, days of pure pain, they got to a stage where I could categorise my heartache attack. I started calling them along the Richter scale, one was teary eyed; two tears gently flowing down the cheeks like watching My Girl; three full on tears; four sobbing my eyes out and gulping air; five full blown heartache attack where the pain is so great that it grips you from the insides, makes you go into the fetal position, sobbing, gulping air, pain bubbling out, muscle spasms, often pulling a muscle or more; six always following a number five, passing out.

Walking into my therapists room it started joining the other routines “so how many richter 6’s you have this week”… My answer varied as I healed, some weeks were worse than others, some weeks I had more panic attacks than others, more flashback attacks, some were less. I had a lot of pain to get out of my system, a lot of anger and a lot of years believing that I was useless, pointless, a mistake at birth and an aberration to mankind. I was not wallowing in self pity nor was I asking for sympathy, every time I went through a Richter it was alone, my private moment in time, a moment of pure unadulterated pain.

We often run from these Richter’s in life, we fear the experience, it scares us and we often think that if we allow it to happen we will never pull through, we will never come out alive. We all have a choice, accept the storms of the heart, sit in that little boat on the open ocean and go along for the ride or choose fake sunshine filtered through sunglasses. We can choose to face our heart head on and take all that it can give us allowing its outpouring to heal us, to wash all the dirt and grime away or we can choose to keep it building up inside us like a dump site.

From experience I can tell you, the days do get clearer, the sunglasses become lighter, the clouds slowly disappear in the night sky and the brilliant sparkling stars appear again. No matter who you are, you are ordinary, no matter how totally abnormal you think or believe yourself to be, you are not, you are human, we all feel, some of us on different levels. There are so many of us that have experienced things in our lives, gone through things, we have lived.

I tell you these things from my colourful bland past so that you might see that it is possible to get through, that it is possible to survive and to tell the tale, light comes from dark and I have seen some of the darkest of nights. I am grateful for allowing myself to go through everything, for allowing myself the chance to experience the built up emotions that I had hid for all those years, I am grateful because it has allowed me the chance to heal, the chance to awaken into a new world, a world of stars and wonders. The night sky now doesn’t look so dark, I am open to what life throws at me, I don’t think myself as abnormal anymore, I have seen the dark side of life and have survived.

We don’t give enough credit to the human spirit, it’s strength or its capacity for greatness. We can overcome anything as long as we are willing to experience what needs to be experienced, to feel what needs to be felt, to live. The one sure thing in my life is that there will be more heartache in my life, I will be emotionally hurt, friends will betray me, I will go through some tough times in the future, I know that this is the case because I am human and I choose to live, it happens to all of us.

Choosing the storm over the fake sun is daunting and scary, it is one of the scariest things that we can face in life, far worse than a driving test or hearing the news on that big deal, the abyss of rapid emotions has no end only your heart can tell you when that is, when it is ready to quieten the storms. Butterflies and Hurricanes of life they will always be there, it is up to us how we take them.

I have edited the song lyrics below, it is how I hear them in my head, sacrilegious but hey…

Hey You don’t make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

Hey You don’t be afraid
You were made to go out and get life
The minute you let it under your skin
Then you begin to make it better

And any time you feel the pain, Hey You, refrain
Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders
For well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder
Na na na na na
na na na na

Hey You don’t let yourself down
You have found life now go and get it
Remember to let it into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

So let it out and let it in
Hey You begin
You’re waiting for someone to perform with
And don’t you know that it’s just you
Hey You you’ll do
The movement you need is on your shoulder

Na na na na na
na na na na Yeah

Hey You don’t make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let it under your skin
Then you’ll begin to make it better
Better, better, better, better, better, Yeah,Yeah,Yeah

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na
Na Na Na Na, Hey You!