Out of Darkness, Out of Doubt

Out of Darkness, Out of Doubt

This is Day 1 of “7 Stories in 7 Days”. I asked my Facebook followers to give me a line from a favorite song to use as a writing prompt. I have not looked up the context of these lines so any similarity to the actual song is purely coincidental.

If it were only that easy, Charlotte thought to herself every time someone offered feel good suggestions to her. No one knows the battles that others fight internally on a daily basis. She has spent a lifetime putting on a false front for everyone else’s benefit. To others, she was the perfect playmate as a child, superior friend and student through school, fabulous wife and mother in adulthood. But nobody understood her internal daemons.

She had seen glimpses of what life could be like – “Should be like” if you asked her. She had many ‘teachers’ explain how simple things could be. “If it were only that easy.” She had gone to self-help seminars. “If it were only that easy.” She owned and had read shelves of self-help books. “If it were only that easy.” She had ended one marriage and thought she had started the next one for all the right reasons, but she constantly questioned herself, her motivation, her decision making skills. She never allowed herself to bask in the successes she had accomplished, mere chalking them up to luck.

She had hit rock bottom. She was filled with despair, total and utter lack of self-confidence, self-worth. Her world was now nothing more than total darkness. She had tried reading, that didn’t help. She had tried journaling, that didn’t help. She meditated, asking quietly for her spirit guide to give her direction. That help didn’t last. What more could she do?

MAKE ME A WITNESS! TAKE ME OUT OF THIS DARKNESS, OUT OF THIS DOUBT!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. The sound of her own voice in the still of the moment startled her. But she had done something she had never allowed before; she gave her feelings a voice. She gave her anxiety a voice. She gave her angst a voice. She waited for an answer. Nothing came.

In her darkness, in her gloom, she drifted off to sleep, a wondrous, healing slumber. The anxieties that had been following her quieted. The anger she carried, rested. The doubt that enveloped her melted away. She awoke realizing there was nothing more she needed to do, it was simply a matter of allowing herself to be.

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