I am realizing that for most of my life, I did not suffer the common fear of the dark. I found the dark, and its loneness, comforting. Sometimes empowering, even.
In the heaviest and widest of black is where I imagined the most colorful of fantasies—convincing delusions I easily pretended could one day be my reality.
In deep darkness is where I made myself at home, for a whole of one of my lifetimes.
My fear—my stunting, arrant fear—was of the light.
Because it was even in the slightest hint of light that I could begin to discover and notice and see and accept that I had blood on my hands.
And that that blood was my own.
I now use the light to wash my hands and tend to my wounds. And to light my way, aware and prepared for approaching obstacles.
As opposed to shining the light on myself, when, for all the world to see, I used to blind myself from the realities around me.
When I blinded myself back into darkness.