We are all made up of different lights

A friend recently said to me that 'we are all made up of different lights', he said this after me expressing how scared I was to open up to him, and I was, I was petrified. But when he said this he stirred something within me, I'd always acknowledged this fact but never been able to express the concept so eloqently and metaphorically.

We all know how I love my metaphors!

When you watch a performance, a concert etc lighting is key, some shine so bright its blinding, some are duller, some are in colour but without even one of those lights, without even the dullest of them all, the spectacle would be so different. So if we consider for a moment we are the spectacle, all of our lights work hand in hand to present to the world who we are.

When I say made up of different lights it is metaphorical, our lights are our experiences, our emotions, our stories. You may know me, but you don't know who I am, you've not observed my lights.

The Japanese say we have three faces; the first, you show to the world, the second, you show to your close friends and your family, and the third, you never show anyone, it is considered to be the truest reflecion of who you are. I guess, these are our lights and each spectacle is different, they could be similar but still different. That is where the beauty is, light possesses so much beauty, light creates colour, it creates sight, so how can we resent that?

Would you prefer a life with only one colour or would you prefer a life bright with differentiation, with shades and a plethora of colour, convert this to lights. Embrace your lights, no matter how bright or dull, embrace them and somebody will love every single one of them, one day, somebody will brighten the dull.

I am good at hiding my many lights, I switch them off and turn them back on when acceptable to do so. The person who said this to me seemed stunned when I told him I suffer from depression, and to be honest his surprise was expected. When I am around people, I am happy and bubbly, I can be shy and quiet but I appear to be completely normal and with the life I lead a question asked, what do you have to be depressed about? Is one that grinds my gears, but these people don't know anything, I appear happy. I shine a light that is bright and soft. I imagine you do to.

We don't have a choice when it comes to our mental illnesses, but we do have a choice in how we present ourselves. And please when you feel you want to hide your illnesses or don't feel anything at all, please present to the world the person you want to be, because I believe in the strength that it takes you to get out of bed in the morning and show your face to the world, the person you show, the person you want to be, is truly who you are, who you are capable of being. It is just that that person is lost at the moment and hurting. And I may not know you but I have so much faith in the fact that you all can do it, and be that person. You are breathing, you are reading and you are living another painful day that seems to have no point, so you have so much more strength than you are even aware of!

We are, within each one of us we possess the colours of the rainbow, we are so abstract that not only do we spend our lives opening our eyes to the colours of others but also learning our own. And I honestly believe it takes a lifetime of commitment to embrace our own lights. It takes heartbreak and healing, honesty and betrayal, it takes love and loss and a profusion of experiences and emotions. And though our paintings and lights may look the same, one light may shine brighter than another but we are made of so many others.

Thankyou- for the inspiration for this post.

All my love

JulietX