Confession Tuesday: The Dark Days Edition

It is in the middle of misery that so much becomes clear. The one who says, "Nothing good came of this" is not yet listening.
   
     ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés


 _______________________________________

Dear Reader,

Yes, it's been that kind of week. 

I confess I posted on Facebook that I've been writing a lot of strikingly sad poems.  I have been.  But I also think they're solid poems.  

My friend told me not to go back "and clean them up" when I'm feeling better.  She believes that the darker places are important, as do I.

She said, "Maybe you are going through this because these are the poems you need to write, because these poems need to be out in the world."

I love my friends who don't try to change me, but who understand my brokenness without judging it and in fact, see it as a plus.  They allow me to be a little Plath now and then.

~

I confess some people want me to pep up. They tell me to find my happy place.  I know my family worries a bit when I'm Elvis Costello's Sulky Girl.  Though there is a part of me that just wants to indulge in the pain of this place.  Especially when I am writing so much, this is the reward for this not-so-positive behavior.  

America is peculiar in the way it wants people to be happy all the time.  Americans smile a lot. I smile a lot even when I am sad.  It's disconcerting. 

We need the patterned drapes from Target and the ottoman that also holds storage so we an seem put together (throw the unread magazines in the ottoman, we have guests coming over!), but we close the drapes on our sadness, can't let the world see us when we're not at our best.

Here's the thing-- lately, I'm more interested in the waywardness in people, in the flaws and foibles, in the mistakes and misunderstandings.

I like people the way I like my hair, a little damaged.
I'm tired of a photoshopped life.  I'm tired of perfection.

~

So this is where I am right now. No need to for a Hallmark card or good thoughts.  

I’m sure Future Kelli will want to delete this post when she’s feeling better (she’s self-conscious like that), but I think there’s something important about not ignoring darker times, but instead see what can be learned from them, written about them, and to acknowledge that as humans we are not always in high spirits and that’s okay.

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. 

            

          ~Edna St. Vincent Millay

Amen.

~ Kells

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