The Softening

It has been two years since the start of The Year That Tried to Break You.  The year of loss and cruelty and heartbreak and grief and pain and change and more loss and more change.  And the irony is not lost on you that it was also The Year of Light.  The year of meeting sisters you never knew you had and of the two souls who connected unexpectedly, and the year of witnessing your children rise up and be beautiful and amazing against the odds.  And the year of the gifts of kindness and love from so many.  And the year of learning to stand up on your own.

It has been almost two years since that year began.  And even still you find it a daily struggle to be soft.  When it would be so much easier to just harden up.  It is a daily struggle to not just harden up and protect your fragile heart.  Many days, most days, it seems it would be much easier to stay shut and be cold and hard.  It has become a daily choice to remain soft.  

You make that choice daily because you have to.  You have to soften so you don’t crack.  You have to bend so you don’t break.  You have to be vulnerable and open your heart.  You have to live and in order to fully live you have to let love in and let the light out.  And letting the light out, that is the scariest thing of all.

So you resist the urge to close up and hide away and you soften and remain grateful for the Light that the Darkness has brought to you.