Finding beauty in tears

This summer certainly hasn't been the best summer of my life.  In fact, it's probably been the worst, the hardest I've ever been through.  I hope it's the hardest I will go through for a long, long time.  I wish I could say that I am better today than I was two months ago, but I just don't think that is the case yet.  I still have a lot of healing to do.

But in the heartache, the struggle and very blue days, I have been fortunate enough to have a few moments take hold of me and breathe into me a deep breath of life.  These moments have saved me.  They are fleeting, gone in seconds, but they remind me of who I am and of the better days that lie ahead...

Once, after a hot evening shower, I opened the bathroom window and felt a cool summer breeze dance across my damp skin.  It was beautiful and I thought to myself, at least I can still enjoy the wind--that's got to count for something.  Another day, I was listening to good music on the train ride home from work when I saw the most beautiful pink and orange sunset.  Recently, it's been the way that the early evening light--faded, gold and soft--plays and shimmers in the late summer trees. It's been the color of figs when they are freshly sliced and the smell of the first autumn leaves damp and decomposing on the sidewalk.  

At first I felt guilty about not being able to control the pain and sadness.  (I am a firm believer that we choose to be happy in life and that happiness, or contentment rather, is something that must be nurtured.)  But, I have since decided that this particular form of unhappiness is out of my control, that this is a season in my life that I must embrace.  And I have.  If that means spending the next 6 months taking hot, teary baths and listening to depressing music, so be it.  Anyway, I will still keep searching out and finding the beautiful things.  The small things that lift my heart, even if just for a second.  It's who I am and the only thing that would really be a shame is if I lost that, too.