Sad Night, Where is the Morning Light?

A few years ago, a friend of mine and I were discussing the difficulties of this time of the year with the shortness of daylight and the drab, dark days of winter upon us. It’s easy to succumb to the adverse effects of darkness as it descends upon us earlier and earlier each day at this time of the year. A lot of it of course is related to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which is a depression related to the change in seasons. The decrease in the amount of sunlight and an increase in the colder temperatures can bring about irritability, difficulty sleeping, and a lack of interest in activities and relationships to name just a few.

For me, the increased darkness presents a greater tendency to feel isolated. That’s often the effect that darkness has on me, especially when I’m in situations in which there is a feeling of the absence of everyone else. I say, “in which there is a feeling” because intellectually, I realize that in the situations when I experience this, there is no true and utter absence of others. Oddly (or perhaps not so oddly), there are two settings when I experience these feeling the most. 

The first is when I am driving at night on a fairly isolated stretch of highway. Although I’m trying to improve my observance of work-life balance, I still occasionally find myself staying over at work in an attempt to complete one project or another. And during the evenings when darkness falls at 5:00 in the evening, the ride home tends to bring the feelings of isolation upon me. The later it is, the more likely I am to feel this. The thought that “everyone else is at home where they should be” and “I am alone” on a stretch of more or less unpopulated highway brings upon me a feeling of frightful seclusion. Of course, it doesn’t last long and the spell can be broken with as little as the site of another car with another "isolated soul" trekking homeward.

The second scenario can be a bit more intense and is probably much more relatable. In fact, it would surprise me if some of you reading this have not experienced this at some point. This is the middle of the night wake up referred to as “middle insomnia.” This phenomenon happens when you go to sleep easily at a normal time but then wake up in the early hours of the morning and cannot go back to sleep. There are many suggestions on how to handle this when it happens and some very interesting articles on segmented sleep but I won’t go into that today. Instead, I want to talk about the feeling of overwhelming isolation that sometimes comes to me at these times. I’m really not sure how common this is but I wonder if perhaps it is felt more deeply by a Highly Sensitive Person like myself. If you don’t know what an HSP is, you can find out here: The Highly Sensitive Person.  And if you wonder if you might be an HSP, there is even a short self-test there you can take. 

So, here is what happens (in fact, has been happening to me lately), I wake up at 4:00 am and the darkness pervades my mind bringing with it a feeling of intense isolation and alienation. Unless you have felt this, it is difficult to understand and cannot be described adequately in words. It is a feeling that you are all alone, different and separated from the rest of the human race. It is a hopeless feeling that threatens to completely overtake you even though intellectually, you know that the feeling of separation is not reality. For some, it probably does take over. And, because dark invites dark, it drives your mind to explore all of those shadow areas of grief, anger, doubt and despair. Fortunately for me, I am able to allow the feeling to happen (embracing it in a sense) with the knowledge that it will not last and that I have been through it before and the morning light always shows itself eventually. Along with that, the realization that there are others who experience this, also helps to fight through.

In a recently released song by U2, Bono sings the following lines:

“Sometimes I wake at four in the morning 

Where all the darkness is swarming 

And it covers me in fear 

Sometimes I'm full of anger and grieving 

So far away from believing 

That any song will reappear”

Yup.  That's what waking up in the darkness can do to some of us.  It’s comforting to know that even rock stars experience these types of things at times although most aren’t likely to be open about it in a song. (Let’s face it, Bono is special - please don’t argue with me on this one). This is one more thing that helps me during those 4:00 am wake up panics. It's that most important reminder in life: I'm not the only one. I'm not alone in this."  And just in case there are others who experience this, I want you to remember that you are not alone either.  No, we're not the only ones harrowed by the darkness and longing for the morning light. And the light will come to our rescue.

"Sad night

Where is the morning light?

When will you come?

When will you shine

Into my darkened soul

Where there’s no light to grow

Anything good

Anything you would see"

The Ocean Blue

"Sad Night, Where is the Morning?"

I Stayed in "Mississippi" a Few Years Too Long

We humans have an uncanny way of getting ourselves stuck in places.  Sometimes it's our fault.  We make impetuous decisions with limited or no information.  Or worse yet, we make decisions supported only by anxieties and/or feelings of the moment.  But sometimes it's not our fault.  Life tends to thrust situations upon us that seem designed to ensnare us and even in hindsight, we can fathom no alternate path that we could have traveled under the circumstances.  Often though, the life prisons that we find ourselves in are a nebulous combinations of both helplessness and carelessness.  A mishmash of life's fault and our fault.  Life's dictated experiences and our less than perfect choices.

It would be nice to think of these life prisons as rare among people but my heart to heart interactions with others assures me that they are not.  I will write sometime soon of my many faceted "policy of truth" (as a friend calls it) which has both worked for and against me when interfacing with others.  One of the "working for me" facets has been that my own openness gives others the freedom to open up to me about deep life issues and therefore I am enormously aware of a truth that many are reluctant to entertain:  We all have issues that imprison us to one degree or another for periods of time throughout our lives... and we like to pretend (even to ourselves) like we don't.

I am certainly not immune.  I've endured my fair share of periods of incarceration.
These times of imprisonment are messy and complicated and if I tried to turn out every dark corner in writing here, this blog would be many pages long and would probably still not expose them all.  For this post, I just want to speak of one of my own time's of imprisonment.  As with most, it falls into the nebulous combinations of helplessness and carelessness.  I don't really want to share all of the details of how I got to that place but I spent over two and a half years there.  And the worst part is that I knew I was there. Early on in my time of imprisonment, I came across a song by Bob Dylan called "Mississippi" and I thought, "that's a reflection of me right now and how I'm stuck.  The song evokes for me all of life's inspirations, failures, longings, broken relationships, regrets, etc.  and how easy it is to get mired down in a place of dwelling on all of that.  Back in May of 2015 I actually spoke of this song on another blog and my intentions to write about it on DD.  Of course, I never did write about it because although I was stuck and knew it, KNEW that I was staying in "Mississippi" too long, and KNEW that I had to move on, I didn't.  Instead, I set up camp to dwell there for a while.  I guess part of it was because there were some things that made me feel good about being there and I stubbornly rebelled against the more important reasons to leave.  It's not bad to visit "Mississippi" because it's a place of grieving and we sometimes need to grieve.  But staying there too long makes grief the only thing that your life is about which in turn, embitters you and prompts you to put on the jade-colored glasses that I spoke of in a previous post.

It took me a long time to venture out of "Mississippi".  In my case, certain things needed to happen within me and without me and thankfully they finally did.  As I said, I am blessed to have many people open up to me and so I know that some of you have been, are, or will be spending some time confined in your own "Mississippi". I hope that your time is short there and that you not only have the strength to recognize where you are but also the will to break free from the false, yet deceitfully alluring entanglements and move on when it's time.  Also, I wish for you to have people around you to help encourage you to be on your way.  It's a difficult responsibility for the people around us to be honest yet supportive and I pray that you have some people who are up to the task in your life as I do.

There are still some days I hear the call of Mississippi and I'm tempted to travel there again.  To dip my toes in the warm waters of the melancholic swamp.  To let the mid-summer torrential rains of despondency wash over me.  To slog along beside the black dog, throwing cares and worries for it to fetch and return.  To become comfortable with the mind numbing yet ultimately embittering confinement of the ancient swampland of regret.  And it's not so bad to visit sometimes I suppose.  In fact, visits are sometimes needed.  Yes, I suppose visits to "Mississippi" are part and parcel to life.  But when those times come, I hope that this post and this song will come to mind and maybe my stay there will be a little more brief.  Only as long as is necessary to heal, after which I'll be able to go along my way with renewed hope and perhaps some new experience I can share with others who have had their own visits to "Mississippi".

"Well my ship's been split to splinters and it's sinking fast

I'm drownin' in the poison, got no future, got no past

But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free

I've got nothin' but affection for all those who've sailed with me...

Well, the emptiness is endless, cold as the clay

You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way

Only one thing I did wrong

Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

There are several versions of "Mississippi" but this stripped back version is the one that speaks to me the most.  Listen if you have time while thinking about what I've shared here.

Bob Dylan "Mississippi"