The light makes the dark more bearable

The other day on DMF my friend Katy mentioned that she has a hard time with perpetual darkness. Our friend Angie went on to say the snow is the only thing that makes the dark bearable. She said it changes everything, because it is so white.
I stared at their words for quite awhile that day, because it's true. Maybe not snow, but darkness whether physical or spiritual is so oppressive some days you don't know how to claw your way out or where to reach out to for help. Light, no matter how dim, shines a light into the darkness and begins to chase it away.

Darkness sometimes feels like my constant companion. I can summon it with the push of the play button or a memory that floats up uninvited of she and he. I've been working hard through some of that junk with God of late, He's been pretty clear that I need to slow down and spend more time alone, silent, with him. So I'm slowing down, I'm listening more and searching for the light and hitting skip on the iPod when a dark song shuffles in.
Yet the darkness remains. It's nipping at my heals and grasping for my heart.
Michelle wouldn't let it go last night. No matter how many times I told her I was ok she just kept asking. It was lovely and uncomfortable at the same time.
How do I continue to explain this to people when I can't even understand it myself?

It seems like this time of year is so dark, I begin to forget what the sun feels like or that there is anything light at all.
It's not bad, but it's not good. It just seems to be most days. I can list a million things that have caused it and have none of them be really true. I can't define it or explain it and I can't seem to make it go away for long. Is it the time of year, sure. Is it the season of remembering and missing her, of course. Is it the messed up way I still love him so much, probably. Is it genetic, self-inflicted, environmental? Yes, yes, and yes, but at the same time no, no and no.
I've drank away the darkness, I've distracted myself with boys and lost myself in smoke and the hustle and bustle of always being busy. I've immersed myself in the darkness, thinking that I just had to plow through it, focus on it and feel it to get through it and past it. Nothing.
The one thing, the most obvious thing, that I haven't done is immerse myself in the light.

I've begged to feel better, I've shouted, cried, pouted, crossed my arms and stomped my feet. I've been troubled by the deafening silence and overwhelmed by the soft whispers urgently calling me to His feet. The hooks of darkness are in there deep, and it is at times so painful to begin to extract them. The small doses of the light that I've opened myself to have slowed the annual descent of darkness, the light is beginning to heal the torn places the darkness has claimed. Will the light stop the darkness completely? I don't know, perhaps. Maybe this year, maybe next, I don't know what will happen. But it's begun to make the dark that descends more bearable, and I have hope....that one day the light will completely eradicate the darkness.