This story is based off of a very long, vivid dream I had back in October 2018. I’m blessed to have incredible dreams, and I’m honored to take you into this world I got to live in for a night. 

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For many years of my life, I knew pain better than I knew happiness. I became far too intimately familiar with the heavy emotions of life. Years, literally years of my life, I was stuck in this endless feeling of darkness. I felt like I was drowning in tar, and I didn’t see how it could possibly end. 

 

Eventually, the dark cloud that had so thickly been above me started to fade away. It wasn’t instantaneous, but when that darkness lifted it felt like I was seeing color and light again after years of being stuck in the dark. 

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I never thought I could do that emotion justice, that I could never fully put into words how it felt for me to go from despair to hope, from pain to relief, from depression to joy, from loneliness to love, from struggle to peace. As it turns out, I struggled to describe that feeling because I was trying to do so in too short-handed of a way. 

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Although this story isn’t about me, this story is my heart. I have known pain and grief. I know how it feels to be lost. I know how it feels to be afraid to let joy back into your life because you’re afraid it won’t last. 

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But what if it does last? What if you open your heart and wonderful things happen? 

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Writing, music, animals, time in nature, family, friends, my soulmate, and a whole fuck-lot of love are how I found my way back. Because I wanted a way to fully express how this feeling feels, this story is about that point in life when the dark clouds finally start to lift and life fills with color once again. It is a feeling of pure joy, it is radical love, it is serenity. 

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To whoever is reading this, wherever you are in life, whether it be a high or a low or a phase somewhere between those, I hope love finds you in unexpected ways. I hope you find serenity.