Past and Present: Dark and Light

The past crawls along underneath your skin and rises occasionally with a need to be scratched.  I suppose there are specific triggers.  Certain dates in the year that are linked to past events, times that used to be important - that somehow still seem like they should be - and it itches when they are not.  Life is a cycle of memories and dreams, both capable of driving us forward and pulling us backward.

Sometimes it seems that these conspire to fall at the same time, experiences that move in both directions.  So I find myself caught between a memory that sprang from angst and a memory that seems almost unreal in the largeness of its beauty.  I have to admit that I have a strong need to scratch both, though I can't seem to understand why. 

I want to find a way to scratch until the memory of the angst is scrubbed off.  Yet I know that will never happen.  It is a part of who I am  - as are all our lessons along the way of life.  As with any loss or death, its landmark dates will give rise to those memories.  They fade with time, but the itch of their existence never fully goes away.  I know this and to some extent I welcome it.  It means I am alive.  More than that it means I have not lost track of who I am.  I am not hiding from what I feel.  And if that is true, then it means that the itch inspired by the beautiful memory, the one that is rather surreal in its own way, may just be real enough to let bloom in my mind.

Yet I have to admit I will be happy to clear February, it is not a favored month.  I will be even happier to clear April, and after that October.  These are the three months of the year that are hardest to smooth through.  Do you know what months you stumble over?  Do you know why?  And have you found any new memories within those months that give you reasons to think about enjoying them again?  So far I have found a help with one month - the youngest of the pains being carried has an offset.  I wonder if it the other months have any hope?

If life is about balance - than this must be a part of it.  Dark with the light.  I pray that we all find more of the light.