The Night

The night has a way of making things painfully obvious. It makes a broken heart feel more like an empty crater. It turns confusion into a dreaded feeling of empty hopelessness. It turns loss into a pit of anguish that nothing will fill. It makes insecurities into flaws and uselessness. It makes even the smallest of problems seem like a vast and impossible issue. The night has a way of destroying everything we work so hard at in the day time. The shadows that creep in are where the fear, anxiety, failure, doubt and rejection hide during the day. Once the sun goes out, one's mind become vulnerable to the fear it's been ignoring all day. That's why children sleep with night lights. That's why we have nightmares. That's why scary movies are often filmed in dark scenes. Darkness lets in the fear. It lets in everything that scares us and intensifies it ten fold. In all honesty I think we're all afraid of the dark in some way. Maybe it physically scares us to be in a dark room. Our palms sweat. Our hearts race. We scream. We cry. Or maybe it scares us mentally. We know realistically nothing is there but the doubt and imagination of the mind create frightening ideas. We think we feel a touch. We think we hear a breath. We think we see a flicker of movement. The night gives way to fear of all kinds. Not only the physical fear of harm but the emotional fear of inadequacy. We begin to believe we're too fat or too tall or too ugly or too stupid. We begin to tell ourselves we'll never amount to anything and that we'll never be loved and that we're useless human beings. What I've found, though, is that these ideas we conjure during the night when terror takes us over and doubt fills every corner of our minds are just that: ideas. Thoughts. They aren't reality. Because with the light of day, we see the truth. We see how beautiful and elegant and intelligent and marvelous we really are. Not in an egotistical way, but in a way that makes us more appreciative of the life we're living. I heard a quote that relates rather impeccably to this series of thoughts and it goes something to the effect of : "don't believe the things you tell your self late at night". A statement couldn't be more true. When the darkness gives way to doubt and insecurity, don't believe it. That broken heart you think is an infill able void will one day be made whole. That loss that seems to break your soul more every second, will one day hurt a little less. Those imperfections are what make you unique. Those things you loathe about yourself will one day be the exact same things that make someone fall in love with you. So don't listen to the night ridden thoughts you have. And remember that every night will end in the light of daybreak.