Poem 1

Even in the time

between

seasons,
beauty shines through
when all is laid



bare




Photo credit: meeee :)

I Have Made Mistakes

I have made mistakes, I continue to make them
the promises I've made, I continue to break them
and all the doubts I've faced, I continue to face them
but nothing is a waste if you learn from it

and the sun, it does not cause us to grow
it is the rain that will strengthen your soul
and it will make you whole

we have lived in fear, and our fear has betrayed us
but we will overcome the apathy that has made us
because we are not alone in the dark with our demons
and we have made mistakes
but we've learned from them

and the sun, it does not cause us to grow
it is the rain that will strengthen your soul
and it will make you whole

and oh my heart, how can I face you now?
when we both know how badly I have let you down
and I am afraid of all I've built
fading away

Artist: The Oh Hello's
Song: I Have Made Mistakes
Album: Through the Deep, Dark Valley

I like sunshine. I like it a lot actually. This may be because I live in a basement currently, and it feels like 5 am down there at 5 am and at noon and at 10 pm. I like sunshine when its beams find my face and warm not only my body but also my soul.

I also enjoy rain, as long as my feet don't get wet. I like rain a lot more lately because it can no longer find its way down my walls to stream across my floor. I like rain when it falls hard and steady and the beating against the ground or my car roof drowns out all the other noise in my life.

This song is one of my favorites by one of my newly favorite bands. For various and sundry reasons, all of the lyrics resonate strongly with me at this time. I am, however, struggling with the sun and rain lyrics. What immediately pops into my head when I think "sun" and "grow" and "rain" are plants. I don't know why, which is part of the reason I'm writing this--I need to see these lyrics for growing people and stop thinking about them as for plants (because plants DO need sun AND rain). Haha! It's just silly.

If I can keep myself completely in humanity and not go off into the jungle, I do think I agree with the lyrics, and I feel like that should be painfully obvious to me and keep the plants out of my mind. What sunny time in one's life was as huge of a catalyst for change and growth as a rainy period? I'm not saying sunny times are bad or that one cannot grow during sunny times. Progress in one's life can be made during laugh-filled adventures down wide avenues lit brightly by the sun. Those are indeed good times, and they are comfortable times. As much as I enjoy my sunny days, I enjoy my sunny days, I look back on them, and I see that eventually they lead to stagnation, and then comes the rain.

Oh how it rains sometimes. And, as a good friend of mine said, "And oh how you learn." The learning curve can be quite steep during the rain. Sometimes you'll slide right back to the beginning of it because you don't know how to--or don't want to--dig in and hold on while you pull yourself, tooth and nail, up the hill.

Eventually you may want to fight. You'll grow tired of sitting with your mistakes in the mud. Stand up. Let the rain wash over you, clean you off. It's never too late to start climbing again. It's never wrong to want to see the sun, to work to make it to the top of the hill, and to have the sun warm you from your soggy, frostbitten toes to your wet, stringy, matted hair.

Just remember, we humans do need both rain and sunshine. How can we enjoy the dry warmth of the sun radiating down on us that shows off all of our best, brightest colors without also having the rain to push us through growth spurts up, up, up closer to the sun?