Opening Up The Vault

As I pondered the theme for this month’s Carnival Against Child Abuse of renewal, or re-birth, I kept coming back to the same thought. Namely, that when we make a turn into a different direction in our lives, whether that be something as simple as giving up smoking, or making the very first steps into healing, we’ve changed everything, in terms of the possibilities we’ve opened up, yet we’ve also changed nothing. The details of our lives are still exactly the same. It reminded me greatly of something I wrote and posted to my old site, long before the idea of a blog had ever occurred to me. As it turns out, I’ve also been trying to figure out a way to bring those old essays into the blog so they can get some new life breathed into them, so what better way to start that then to republish one here as my submission to the Renewal theme:

Midnight Is Where The Day Begins

This is a song lyric I heard today ( U2, Lemon). I thought to myself, how true this sentiment is. Midnight has always been the one time we were supposed to fear, the ” witching hour” as it were. The external world always seems so dark and foreboding at this time. It’s always set up as a curfew time, always made to sound so dangerous, and unforgiving.

Yet the truth of the matter is that, the new day starts at midnight. It is the marking of change and although the external signs of that change in day don’t come for 6 hours or so, the TRUTH is the day starts right here.

As I consider this , I can’t help but think about the road to healing that survivors travel, and how we have made the change into a new day, even though the signs aren’t yet visible. How many of us are already past the midnight of our lives, even though we do not yet see the sun rising. How differently would we see our lives if we stopped to consider that the old day is over, it is time for a new one to begin, and the sun WILL come up on this day, just like every other day.

As I consider my life, I begin to see some early signs of the new day dawning, I have sensed the change in day, but it has not been determined how this new day will be. That is up to me, I can make this new day truly new, or I can re-live the same old days again. The important thing to know is that is MY choice, I will determine whether this day is sunny and bright, or stays as dark as the night before. What choice will you make? Will you recognize the change in days, despite the darkness that still looms, or will you stay in that darkness, waiting in vain for the light to come before you believe it’s a new day?

By: Mike McBride Feb.9, 1998