Time In the Shadows
I am left in the shadows of my mind, with only my creative thoughts to keep me company. I share in others desire to be found. To have others compliment my tired efforts at showing them my mind is worth something.
This world is full of people like me. Lonely and waiting. Hopeful that someday their glory will shine on others like the light that gleams off of their beer bottles on Saturday nights.
Is it all for not?
Are we all waiting for a possibility that eludes us? Is it like an old mom and pop shop? Where the only way to get into the eye view of others is who you know? I’m not sure either. I bet you’re wondering what I’m rambling on and on about….
I shall let you into my world of darkness… but only for a moment.
I am a writer. A good one… I think… and a persistent one. Yet, my words to not hit the eyes of everyone I would like it to. Have you ever felt this way? Are you like me, and in the dark yourself?
Let me paint you a picture of a woman's life:
A young girl dreams of a family business, a white picket fence and a loving family. Eighteen years of age she meets a man, not the brightest in the batch but a tongue like a serpent. Promising her the moon. A short time later she finds herself pregnant, now it’s time to wed. It is only 2 months into the marriage that this soon-to-be-mother realizes that this man is not her forever. Staying out all hours and caring more about his friendships than his family. A spout of infidelity wins her back her freedom.
Now a mother of one, she strives for income to ensure her 6-month-old son is fed. She meets a man (boy) of 19 — two years her junior, who wishes to court her. For a year they are embarked on a journey to the unknown and end up living in a trailer park working dead-end jobs. This mother feels trapped.
She then meets another man at work… a married man… who also wishes to court her. Freedom. At least she thought. After three years and one additional child later, this man who offered her freedom and future is still married.
Heartbroken, she shatters her world and removes herself from the circus she called a relationship.
2 months later, she is told her heart is failing. Spiraling, she allows her family to watch her now TWO young children so that she may continue to work and put food on the table. She loses her home, her security and her sanity. Begins day drinking to make it through.
To her, her life was over.
She then, in a scenario that would never call for it, meets her soulmate... her stepfathers kid brother. A man who saves her from herself and the hole of depression she had been living in. Without knowing her 24 hours, this man moves her and her two young children in. Six months later, she’s married and building a new life she never thought she would have. Then comes a third child, and a fourth, now a fifth. The world seems clearer now.
Five years go by, and this woman works a string of different jobs to help care for her new family she cares so deeply for. Until…. one day… she snaps, breaks the cycle of the working world and embarks on a new adventure to gain income on her own. The family business she had always dreamed of. Now all she must do is make it work.
Do not be worried my friends. I have not poisoned your minds with someone else’s woes. The woman in the story is me. Although the beginning of my life was nowhere near a fairytale, and I have not yet gained that white picket fence. I am slowly moving forward.
My time in the shadows is drifting, but only slightly.
I feel stuck because of many things. I feel invisible, tired and concerned that my low patience level will keep me from continuing on my journey.
Do any of you feel this way at times? If you do, I am here to speak, read or write with you.
We will climb out of the shadows together.
🧡 Shine Bright, Kayla