I wear my sunglasses at night...

I recently got new sunglasses. They are prescription glasses so I can wear them while driving or doing other activities and still be able to see clearly. Sometimes, when I have stopped somewhere, I find that I am still wearing my sunglasses and, because I can still see, I actually forget that I am wearing them. I apologize but realize that I need to keep wearing them or everything will be blurry.

Events in my life recently require clear vision, new glasses of a sort. Glasses to help me see into my own heart, my future. When the world is cloudy and the hope is that the fog will clear, you push through with an open hand, parting the wisps of white streaming through my mind's eye. My life is in a rapid succession of changes and, at times, I am having a hard time focusing. I need glasses that will make things clear, provide me with direction.

Sometimes I think that we believe that, as adults, we will have our lives together. I know that's what I thought. I had figured that my life was sorted out, I knew the path but sometimes life is unpredictable and things change. Change can be good, empowering. Change can give focus where there hasn't been focus before but change is also frightening and unsettling.

These last two years have been a challenge, personally and emotionally. So much has happened it almost seems unreal, like a fog that has blown through my life and clouded up my vision. I spent time feeling like I was drowning, almost a year, grabbing for goggles and a snorkel, struggling to breathe. Reaching my arms out, arching my back, pushing my face toward the sky, keeping myself afloat. Clouded goggles making it difficult to see, blowing water from the snorkel to keep water out of my lungs. At times, the sun breaking through the clouds, warming my face. These times brought a sense of peace, calm before the storm that rocked my life for over a year.

Time has passed, the darkest times, a night that asted for months has passed and the sun is breaking through the clouds. Slivers of lights shining through the clouds have become more common as the days go by. Some days, the light is so bright I need to pull out my shades, the sun glasses that allow me to see clearly.

These days come and go, some are bright while others are still cloudy and dark. The dark days are the hardest. The days where the clouds seem that they will never part. The days when the storm is so big that it feels like it will engulf me. This is where I stand, alternating between the sun and the storm, hoping that as time goes on, the stormy days become less and less and I am able to turn my face toward the sun....wearing the sunglasses that finally
allow me to see.