“I cannot be awake, for nothing looks to me as it did before, or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.”
― Walt Whitman
Well put Mr. Whitman.
Especially that state you describe as “a mean sleep.”
I believe that we all tend to share a common bunk at one time or another in our lives. Where we only see life from one side. Tearing ourselves down but neglecting to enjoin in a rebuilding process. Hearing only the negative, construing honest interactions as disparaging, disregarding the true affirmations born of love and tucking away all of what we are made to be so we can return back to our mean sleep.
Though it entirely contradicts common sense, there is this misperception of comfort to be found under that stifling blanket, albeit unhealthy. Covered by bad habits, we choose to remain. It is known territory. Nothing comes unexpected. We convince ourselves it is all as it should be. Because simply “it is what it is.”
Well there is another side of that bed.
Might appear to be cold and dark at first glance. But if we give it a chance, we will sense a warm and inviting light over there. Perhaps our eyes, ears, head and heart need to get used to the difference present in that glow. But when we roll over and throw off those stifling covers, we begin to hear things in another voice.
Through the light finally penetrating the glass, we can now perceive it as becoming half full. Glimmers of positivity radiate within conversations. Others’ shared expressions of what they see in us bathe us in a warmth we have longed to know for what seemed an eternity. And as our focus sharpens, that figure now facing us is the one we have always known ourselves to be.
Though nothing may look to us like it ever did before, there can be a first time for everything. In a way, that is how an epiphany works.
And finally being awake like this, for the first time, brings us great rest, peace and joy.
For nothing looks like it did before.
...my temporary assignment. 