I don't know if it was the epic music that played during the scene, or the perfectly beautiful dialogue in the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers when Samwise Gamgee tells Frodo that they're holding onto something, that there's good in the world that's worth fighting for but the scene has long been one that I have turned to during my dark hours when life has been so hard to get through and I'm unsure that I can make it through to the other side. It continually reinforces Hope in my mind whenever I watch it. Especially when Samwise tells Frodo that the shadow is only a passing thing and that when the sun shines it will shine out clearer.
Today, I feel like I'm in the clearer sunshine. For months and months I'd been desperately searching for Light and Hope as I struggle with what feels like the weight of the world on my shoulders. It's a mixture of family trials and my own that's had me feeling so down and I noticed that since I wasn't feeling good, I wasn't behaving "good". Drive with me in the car and we would not get to our destination, no matter how short the drive, without my "road rage" commentary. Oh sure, I never really exhibited much "rage" past my verbal insults and complaints toward other drivers. I never gestured or pulled reckless moves to let it out, I would simply just make remarks. There might have been some language used befitting a sailor, but that's all beside the point. I was slowly but surely drowning in negativity and constantly lost in a world where I didn't know my own self. I thought I did, for sure, but I didn't truly know. I was raised by a sweet mother who taught me well. From her I learned to say, "thank you," and be polite. But during these dark months there was no polite bone in my body. I had lost all sight, it had seemed, of what I was striving to become in 2014. Don't get me wrong, 2014 was still a good year but I was still suffering from the damage of a terrible 2012 and 2013. I didn't know in those bad years that it'd take me another 2 years to repair the damage. I was bitter (and in denial over it) and while I wasn't overtly mean I didn't remember what it was like to be polite and good-natured toward my fellow man. I was depressed most of the time and wallowing in negativity.
But let's step away from that ugly painted picture, shall we? Today, as I was watching one of my favorite TV shows about two brothers who fight evil on a daily basis and in the episode I watched they were showing their love toward a dear friend, I had a revelation about myself. Something I hadn't realized this week but once I figured it out could see behind me with 20/20 vision. I had suddenly discovered that I was the sappy, sweet, and smiley person I had been in my teen years and early twenties. I was sensitive toward my fellow man again. Crying slow little happy tears over these brothers' exchange with their loved one. And just last week, I paused in my driving to allow a car in front of me who had been waiting to turn onto a heavy traffic street. And today I held the door open for another customer as they were walking out of the bookstore before I went inside.
I don't know how it happened, I don't know what I did differently to suddenly have this change. But I feel that weight of the world has been lifted. I'm a happier person. Closer to being like my role-model: a man who seems to always smile and always be polite in everything he does. And it feels really good. All this time I'd been lost, but I finally feel like I've found myself again. It feels good to not be so negative... and to not be so depressed. And it makes me even more excited for the next 300+ days of 2015.
This makes me incredibly happy!!!
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