They say life has ups and downs.  This makes sense.  I get so discouraged, though, when life seems like a pendulum.  It is swinging back and forth: sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly.  I had a week of being frightened, scared to be alone, being on the edge of a chasm that threatened to swallow me forever.  And then the pendulum began to move the other way: no longer scared and scraping by from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day.  A peace and a hope began to make it’s way into my heart and I’m relieved to no longer be building a bridge across the chasm.  It is behind me – for now.

I wish life wasn’t a pendulum.  It seems to go back and forth between the same things: hopelessness and peace.  There is rarely an in-between.  It feels like one step forward and three steps back.  Even though peace and hope begin to become part of the daily norm I’m always apprehensive of the pendulum swinging back to darkness and hopelessness.  I feel out of control and stuck – chained to this back and forth that seems to keep on cycling: the same over and over again.  So I work hard to escape it’s influence and break the chain.  I try with all of my might to get out of the pendulum swing, get out of the cycle.  I tug and tug at this force and sometimes I’m free but sometimes the chain get’s short and I’m back in the dark.

It is difficult when the journey does not feel linear but is more of a circle or a swing between two polar opposites.  Little by little I will break free and move forward.  Healing takes a lifetime: small steps and grasping on to hope with all of my might.  It is standing on the edge of a chasm and seeing the bridge complete before me – not having to build it plank by plank with the fear of falling into the darkness.  Healing is reaching out to others, letting go of shame, and being vulnerable.  It is breaking away from the influence of the pendulum that drags me from hope to darkness and back again.  Healing is the linear path of holding on to hope and experiencing peace.