Meg Dowell Writes

Looking ahead, I find myself in constant wonder. Looking back, I fear the past. Not so much what is to come, but what has already attempted to seduce me with its evil ways. I think hesitantly about the things that I did and said and tried to become, and I hate the person that did and said and tried those things. I don’t see me when I think about the darkness. I see someone else.

She was a young girl with a beautiful face. She was perfect in the eyes of God, though she failed to see how anyone or anything could ever think of her as perfect or beautiful. She was desperate and hurting with no way to escape the pain. And over her beautiful face that she could not see, she painted on a mask. Everywhere she went she wore that mask, with upward curling lips and wide, pure eyes. She played the part of the face of that mask like it was her job. She pretended to be an angel; she became an actress playing the part of a happy innocent girl.

She rarely peeled of the mask from her face. Only when she was alone with no one to bother her did she tear off the giddy mold and chuck it across the room in anger. And there again was her beautiful face. However there was no one around to remind her how beautiful it was. It failed to light up the room and it failed to show any emotion at all other than despair. Her beautiful face leaked sadness. It leaked feelings of loneliness and misunderstanding until she put the mask back on again and left her room.

Not only did she hide her face; she hid her heart. She wanted to be the girl that everyone looked up to. She wanted to be accepted and loved. And so she stuffed her emotions away. She locked her anger-filled heart and hid the key in a place only she could find it, if she wanted to. But she rarely did. She only reached for it when she wanted someone to listen to her. But no one listened to her, because she did not show any signs of needing to be listened to. Because she hid, she felt that much more neglected and alone.

She entered the darkness slowly and numbly. She had no knowledge of the dangers of the pitch blackness. No one had ever told her what any of it meant. Still, nothing made sense in her aching and empty heart. She stepped into the cold harsh absence of color and attempted to breathe; no air would come. Nothing soothed her there. Yet, she found while there that she could wallow in her misery; and wallow, she did. She fed off of her own depression contently at first. But soon enough it became too much for her to handle.

Somehow she escaped. To this day she doesn’t know exactly how. But somehow, in the midst of all of her pain, she found light. A spectrum of color pierced the darkness in a way that she could not resist. She reached and grabbed for that light with all of the strength she had left in her. Despite her tiredness and weariness, she was dragged from the place that had made her blind and pulled back into the real world.

For the first time in a long time she felt something. No longer did her heart ache or the burdens of the world rest heavily on her shoulders. She felt happy. And years later, it struck her how many people close to her were trapped in the very darkness that she had been lost in. She vowed to help them find the light, no matter what it would take.

I’m still determined to help them. They have to find the light in their despair.